Having established himself as one of the welterweight division’s top contenders, Colby Covington is now eyeing one of two fights: a title fight with reigning champ Tyron Woodley, or an interim title fight with fellow contender Rafael dos Anjos. Unfortunately for him, neither man seems interested in fighting him at this particular moment.

Covington believes he knows why this is the case.

“Tyron Woodley, we trained together, we’ve had multiple, multiple days, hours, months of training together, and he’s never beat me one round at American Top Team,” Covington said on the latest episode of BJ Penn Radio, explaining why he thinks Woodley is avoiding him. “He knows how good I am. He knows I won’t be stopped. He knows I’ll kill him in a matchup.”

“RDA, same thing,” Covington explained, riffing on dos Anjos. “He knows I’m a terrible matchup. He’s slow, he’s old, his wrestling sucks, his jiu-jitsu is terrible. He wants to defend his country, he wants to be a hero, and he wants that image, but he doesn’t want what comes with that. He knows me. I’m on the other side and he’s not going to be able to take that business so, yeah, it’s kind of disappointing. He claims to be this Brazilian, this proud Brazilian, but, yeah, he lives in California in a gated community. Then, he claims that he wants to do all these things for Brazil, but then, here’s your chance to be a true national hero and you’re not even accepting the challenge, so RDA is a disgrace, man. The guy’s a fake and phoney.”

Colby Covington has established himself as one of the top welterweights on earth with a five-fight streak, highlighted by recent defeats of long-time contenders Dong Hyun Kim and Demian Maia. He’s 13-1 overall.

This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 24/12/2017.