The coach of upcoming Ultimate Fighting Championship title challenger
Colby
Covington expects his fighter will hold the belt this year.
At the conclusion of UFC 286 in March, Leon
Edwards prevailed in the rubber match against rival Kamaru
Usman to claim the 170-pound title once and for all. In
uncharacteristic fashion, UFC head Dana White stated unequivocally
that Covington would receive the next crack at gold during the
post-fight press conference. Even with multiple competitors on
lengthy win streaks, and a pivotal bout between Gilbert
Burns and Jorge
Masvidal coming up, White was certain that Covington will be
the next challenger. Earlier this week, the coaches of “Chaos” at
MMA Masters in Florida spoke to Sherdog, where they explained what
he has been doing lately and what they believe is in store for
him.
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“He had to stay [off] a long time recovering from the cowardice
Masvidal did to him,” coach Daniel Valverde revealed, “but since he
returned to the academy about four months ago, Colby was getting
ready to face [Khamzat] Chimaev. He was pretty sure that this was
the fight [the] UFC wanted, but looks like [the] UFC didn’t believe
that [Chimaev] could reach welterweight and decided to [move]
Chimaev up [to middleweight]. But it’s not true that Colby didn’t
accept to fight him. It was a UFC decision.”
Covington and his team expect that the welterweight championship
match will take place on July 8 at UFC 290, but that has not been
confirmed at this time. When the fight inevitably comes,
Covington’s head coach, Cesar Carneiro, believes that his fighter
is a terrible style matchup for the British champion.
“Colby is a cardio machine,” Carneiro explained. “Today, he did
more than 10 rounds in the academy, keeping the same pressure [the
whole time]. From what I saw of Edwards’ fights against Nate Diaz and
Usman, I don’t think he is ready to face Colby’s pressure. My bet
is [Covington by] TKO in the third round.”