Colby Covington and Tyron Woodley both expressed interest in fighting each other recently, but the fight never came together.

Instead, the UFC matched the former champ Woodley up with streaking contender Gilbert Burns.

Speaking on MMA Fighting’s What the Heck show, Covington explained why Woodley ended up being matched up with Burns.

He believes the promotion is testing the former champion.

.@ColbyCovMMA recounts why fight with Tyron Woodley never came to fruition:

“He never wanted to fight me. I’m the first guy to ever scare the champion into ‘elective surgery.’”

Watch full interview: https://t.co/gikX6XZjY8 pic.twitter.com/6gXL1Ka0a3

— MMAFighting.com (@MMAFighting) May 22, 2020

“The real reason I didn’t get this fight is because the UFC didn’t want to give him the fight,” Covington began. “His last fight, he looked so washed up, Mike, the UFC wanted to see if has anything left in the tank. They want to see if he can prove himself to earn the losing, ass-whoopin’ paycheck to me. So this is a test by the UFC. They’re making him fight some kid named ‘Dilbert.’ Nobody even knows who Dilbert is. So we’ll see if passes that test and he can earn this ass-whoopin’, losing paycheck to me. You know, who knows? He’s doing a lot of things. I mean, he’s trying to rap. He’s hurting people’s ears, dude. He’s a frickin’ dork.”

Covington continued, letting his long-time rival have it.

“It just sucks. He just didn’t want to fight me. I’m the first guy to ever scare the champion into elective surgery. Elective surgery, Mike! The guy was ready to fight Nate Diaz, some lightweight scrub wash-up, the Stockton soy-boy, he was ready to fight him, but he won’t fight Colby ‘Chaos’ Covington when I have the real welterweight championship. The people’s championship. America’s championship. More importantly, [I’m] Donald Trump’s favorite fighter.”

Do you think Colby Covington and Tyron Woodley will ever end up fighting?