To many’s dismay, trash-mouthed welterweight Colby Covington won the UFC interim welterweight title over Rafael dos Anjos in the co-main event of last weekend’s (Sat., June 9, 2018) UFC 225 from the United Center in Chicago, Illinois.
The pivotal win earned ‘Chaos’ a date with returning champion Tyron Woodley, and Covington began calling out the champ the minute he had the interim gold around his waist.
The callout prompted a response from the champ, who eventually suggested he would go ‘Ivan Drago’ on Covington when they fight. However, during a recent appearance on The MMA Hour this week, Woodley discussed much more measured approach designed to make his American Top Team (ATT) teammate-turned-rival suffer.
Woodley believes that Covington is a disgrace to the sport of mixed martial arts (MMA) and wants to enact some payback:
“Here’s the thing, he’s not on my level. He never will be on my level. But now he’s to the point where it’s almost like my duty as a martial artist to f*ck him up,” Woodley said Monday on The MMA Hour. “It’s almost my job as a martial artist, for whatever I stand for. I talked to (ATT owner) Dan Lambert today. I said after I whoop his ass, I want him off the team. He’s a disgrace to American Top Team, the tradition that it was rooted in. He’s a disgrace to the sport. He’s a mockery to the toughest and the best division in the UFC’s history, which is the welterweight division, and he’s a disgrace to it.”
Woodley then knocked Covington’s trash talk, which he used to parlay into a very high-profile fight while irking many by using racially and politically-charged topics. Because of that, Woodley plans to hit him with a special kind of striking power, one he said dos Anjos simply does not possess:
“It’s not like he’s just going out there and just saying something he believes. He’s staging and premeditating very controversial, very racial, very socially insensitive statements, and he can’t back it up. He’s talked himself into a fight with me. The problem is, when they lock this Octagon, I’m gonna unleash an ass-whooping on him that nobody has every experienced — and he can’t run. He can’t out-strike me. He can’t out-wrestle me. And anybody can get in shape, brother. You think cardio gonna beat me? Let me see you put your chin on the treadmill. Let me see the cardio of your chin, because he hasn’t been hit like I’m gonna hit him. RDA don’t possess that power.”
But that knockout power won’t lead to a first-round win for him, Woodley said, as he wants to make Covington feel every shot of what he says will be a prolonged beating for being a disgrace to ATT
He’s so angry, in fact, that he claims he wouldn’t care if ‘Chaos’ didn’t make it out of the octagon:
“I [started at ATT as] a wrestling coach,” Woodley said. “I wasn’t even technically what you would call a fighter yet. And for me to come from a coach, to an amateur fighter, to a pro fighter, to a world champion, I take pride in what American Top Team stands for. He’s a disgrace. He’s the sh*t on the bottom of my foot when I walk through the park. That’s what he is.
“I’m not going to make it fast. It’s not going to be in the first round. I’m going to talk to him, I’m going to embarrass him, and I’m going to do it the entire fight. And if the referee gets close, I’m going to say, ‘Move back, brother. I’ll tell you when to step in and stop this fight. Don’t f*cking come in here to save his life. Let him take this fade. Let him take this ‘L.’ Let him take this ass-whooping.’ Because I don’t want him to ever fight again. Like, I wouldn’t care if he didn’t make out of the Octagon — and I’m dead-ass serious about that.”
The champ has been a bit dormant following shoulder surgery after his decision win over Demian Maia last July but revealed Covington has awoken the beast, and he’s scared of what he might do in such a state.
He’s excited to fight Covington, and when he does, he reiterated he’d make it as long of a beating as he could:
“I’ve been making more money not fighting than he’s made in his entire career,” Woodley said. “So why am I going to pay attention and give him the focus? Now he’s got my attention, and he got me into a position that I’m kinda actually scared of what I can actually do with this mental state. Like, if I knock people out and I’ve never punched anybody 100 percent in a fight — most of my knockouts come because I see it and I react and I get to the pace real fast, I get to the sh*t real quick; it’s not the fact that I’m just sitting there teeing off.
“But I’m gonna try to tee off on him so bad that he just wants to quit. And if the referee looks like he’s gonna come break it up, I’m gonna pause and tell him to take a step back. I’ll let him recover before I whoop his ass some more. I can’t wait. I cannot wait for this fight.”
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