Stephen R. Sylvanie-USA TODAY Sports
“He went down, he’s covering up. Why? He gets up, first thing he says is, ‘what are you doing?’”
Former UFC welterweight champ Matt Serra thinks the main event of UFC 245 between Kamaru Usman and Colby Covington was stopped a bit too early.
Usman and Covington went back and forth for five rounds in their main event fight, undoubtedly putting on one of the best title fights of 2019. Just as it looked likely to be heading to the judges scorecards, Usman stopped Covington in the fifth round after knocking him down and following up with strikes.
Talking on the most recent episode of the UFC Unfiltered podcast, Serra said despite feeling weird defending Covington as he “doesn’t like the guy,’’ he thinks the stoppage was a bit early.
“I felt that was definitely a little premature,” Serra said. “F—k, the guy’s fighting almost 10 minutes with a broken jaw. He went down, he’s moving his head, he’s covering up. Why? He gets up, first thing he says is, ‘what are you doing?’ And listen I really feel weird being the guy to go to bat for Colby cause I don’t like the guy.” (Transcription via BJ Penn)
Heading into the fifth round, one judge scored the fight 3-1 in favor of Covington, one 3-1 for Usman and the other had it 2-2. Given Usman was dominating in the fifth round he would have likely won by decision anyway, something that Serra echoed. He still feels referee Marc Goddard should have let the fight continued further.
“I feel that Usman would’ve got the decision,” Serra continued. “So let him get the decision or see what else happens. I can’t just look at that stoppage and say, ‘yeah that was good.’ There might have been worse ones but it was pretty bad. It was pretty bad for what was at stake there.”