The welterweight title picture continues to figure itself out. And it looks like it may doing so without the likes of Colby Covington.
As most everyone expected, the next welterweight title bout would surely be Covington taking on his nemesis in the undisputed champion Tyron Woodley. However, since Kamaru Usman’s continued dominance after defeating former lightweight champion Rafael Dos Anjos, plans appear to be changing.
With the recent cancellation of UFC 233, a card in which we thought may end up being headlined by a welterweight title fight, Usman has now revealed that he has been officially offered a fight with the champion Tyron Woodley.
https://twitter.com/USMAN84kg/status/1072980934943748098
“Hope the hand is ready champ @TWooodley the @ufc bout agreement has been signed and I’ll see you soon 👊🏾👊🏾🇳🇬 #AndNew #NigerianNightmare #GoTime @AliAbdelaziz00 @danawhite @seanshelby @Mickmaynard2” Usman tweeted.
Having recently been called out by Woodley’s friend, teammate and newest UFC welterweight, Ben Askren, Kamaru Usman showed full confidence in the case that he was to fight Askren. At the same time, he shared his thoughts on why all the confusion is going down atop the division in the first place.
“The real problem is Tyron,” Usman said. “I’m tired of being nice, you know? Like listen, everything aside, I have mutual respect for Tyron, man. I think he’s a phenomenal guy, he’s been a great champion. But he creates a lot of these problems. And I understand a part of his argument saying that ‘Hey, you know, I’ve been fighting very, very frequently. I want a little bit more time in between,’ I understand that. Then come out and say that. Don’t come out and say you’re fine and you’re ready to go and not defend your belt when they ask you to fight. That’s the problem here.”
Woodley’s last fight came in September at UFC 228 when he dispatched of Darren Till with relative ease. Unfortunately, Woodley injured his thumb in the process of picking up the win and needed surgery to fix it.
Now it appears to be just a matter of ‘when’ for things to get going again at the top of one of MMA’s most stacked divisions.
This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 12/12/2018