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Tyron Woodley believes Kamaru Usman has the slight edge over Colby Covington in their upcoming welterweight title bout at UFC 245.
Tyron Woodley has a unique insight into the UFC 245 main event between Kamaru Usman and Colby Covington.
Woodley used to be training partners with Covington at American Top Team (ATT) and, just earlier this year, ‘T-Wood’ lost his welterweight title to Usman after being thrashed by the wrestling powerhouse in the UFC 235 main event at Las Vegas’ T-Mobile Arena.
Having had plenty of in-cage experience with both men, Woodley believes ‘The Nigerian Nightmare’ has a slight grappling edge over Covington and thinks it will be difficult for ‘Chaos’ to establish his range.
“I think Usman’s scrambling abilities are better than Colby’s as far as once you get to a leg,” Woodley said on the latest edition of TMZ Sports’ The Hollywood Beatdown (via MMA Junkie). “Anytime you get to a single leg versus two legs, it’s always a scramble involved. So when you watch Kamaru Usman – like, my teammate Michael Chandler is his training partner – when you watch those guys scramble, going around, this is high-level scrambling.
“I think Usman has a slight edge that is annoying and frustrating to deal with and if he can’t get space, he may not be able to punch Colby, and that takes his advantage in striking away.”
UFC 245, which also features a co-headlining featherweight title bout Max Holloway and Alexander Volkanovski, takes place later this year, Dec. 14 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.