Apart from the UFC Fight Night 119 highlight fixture between the returning Machida and the underrated Brunson, another fight which has all eyes on it is the one between Demian Maia vs. Colby Covington. This fight matters substantially in terms of how things shape up going forward in the welterweight division. Maia is coming off the back of a title loss and will be hungry to get back to winning ways.
On the other hand, Colby Covington is not as experienced, but has certainly shown a lot of promise and potential and is a serious contender. Both fighters are grapplers, but that is where the similarities end. Both have very contrastingly different styles and that should make it an interesting matchup indeed.
On one hand we have Maia, who is an experienced top – notch Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu blackbelt that has put some of the best fighters in the world into unforgiving submissions and forced them to tap out. And then, there is Covington who is not exactly a gracious fighter and relies mostly on sheer brute strength and muscle power. Covington should be riding a high confidence wave coming into this match up. Covington loves to take down his opponents to the mat and then subject them to the classic ground and pound. Despite the fact that Maia lost his most recent outing, he has been in pretty good form otherwise and is 4 – 1 in his last five fights. For Covington, a win here will mean a possible chance a title fight and so he has a lot riding on the outcome of this fight.
Predicting this one is not going to be easy, the styles at play are rather contrasting, but Maia has been able to handle guys like Covington in the past and he should be able to come out on top here. We are going to go with Covington to win by decision.