Longtime UFC welterweight rivals, Kamaru Usman and Colby Covington, had their first backstage beef nearly seven years ago as part of the UFC 223 press conference festivities in Brooklyn, New York, with Khabib Nurmagomedov begging them to not “broke bus.”
Because a “big drama show” can lead to fighters in handcuffs.
In the years following their backstage beef, Usman would defeat Covington in two separate title fights, first at UFC 245 and then again at UFC 268. Most recently, “The Nigerian Nightmare” stumbled onto Covington’s live Twitch stream ahead of UFC Vegas 102.
Fortunately, nobody got shoved during their encounter.
“That was Usman, he said, ‘Hey man we’re gonna talk in a little bit,’ because I don’t think he wanted to talk on the stream, he didn’t want the chat to hear what he had to say,” Covington told his online fans. “We’ll definitely chop it up in a little bit. Maybe we’ll get a picture, or maybe we’ll just fight. You never know. When ‘Chaos’ is in the building, it’s unpredictable.”
I would argue his shtick is fairly predictable at this point.
Covington, 36, claimed he wasn’t going to shake Usman’s hand after already extending his hand to shake (to which Usman refused). Fans on Twitter mocked the former welterweight title challenger for another “cringe” attempt at sounding tough in the face of defeat.
Both Usman and Covington are currently unbooked.