One of the options for the main event of the upcoming UFC 230 card was a welterweight title fight between champion Tyron Woodley and interim champion Colby Covington. With Covington healthy, and Woodley riding a huge win over Darren Till, the fight seemed to make a lot of sense. Furthermore, Woodley said he was open to fighting Covington at UFC 230, so long as he was given a clean bill of health. Unfortunately, he was then forced to go under the knife to repair an injured hand, ruling out this possibility.
Well, Colby Covington isn’t buying it.
“You know I wasn’t surprised, I definitely was not surprised, he has been ducking me for so long now, could anybody be surprised?” Colby Covington said on episode 100 of BJPENN.COM Radio. “He ducked me last December for the show in Vegas that they wanted to put us on, he ducked me for the Ultimate Fighter. He ducked me when they were talking about putting this fight together.”
“He doesn’t want to fight me, why do you think he won’t say my name?” Covington continued. “Why do you think he goes on Joe Rogan’s show, Ariel Helwani’s show and he says, ‘Yo, we are not talking about Colby Covington. I know he is the real champ, but we are not going to talk about him because you know I don’t wanna talk about him or give him a platform or even entertain that.’ So, you know he is scared of me, he doesn’t wanna fight. He had the opportunity. The golden opportunity to fight at Madison Square Garden, that iconic arena, the most iconic arena in the world. He puts his tail in between his legs and he ducks me. He said after a fight he was healthy, he was good to go. You would’ve known then and there that his hand was hurt. When he went to the locker room, cooled off after the shower he would have known, ‘oh my thumb is messed up, oh my hand’s hurt.’
Colby Covington continued, explaining that he and Woodley were both in negotiations with the UFC in an effort to make this fight happen at UFC 230.
“You know, the thing that people don’t realize is he was negotiating with the UFC this whole time,” Covington said. “I’d agree on the basis that I was ready to go fight, but he hadn’t agreed. And they were trying to get him to agree, and negotiations must not have went well. So he wants to pout and cry like a little baby that he is, little soft liberal snowflake, and hold out until next year. It is what it is, you know I’ll find a show, which will be Super Bowl Weekend. We’ll get it then, and I’ll end his career then and take everything he has worked for.”
Do you think we’ll finally see Colby Covington and Tyron Woodley fight on Super Bowl Weekend in 2019?
This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 10/8/2018