{"id":320975,"date":"2019-07-31T07:23:27","date_gmt":"2019-07-31T14:23:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/?p=320975"},"modified":"2019-07-31T07:23:27","modified_gmt":"2019-07-31T14:23:27","slug":"kamaru-usman-there-could-be-psychological-aspect-in-lawler-vs-covington-matchup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/ufc\/kamaru-usman-there-could-be-psychological-aspect-in-lawler-vs-covington-matchup\/","title":{"rendered":"Kamaru Usman: There could be psychological aspect in Lawler vs. Covington matchup"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On Saturday night, in the main event of UFC Newark, former interim welterweight champ Colby Covington will step into the cage with former undisputed welterweight champ Robbie Lawler in a bout that could produce the next welterweight title challenger. As such, reigning champ Kamaru Usman will be watching the action closely.<\/p>\n<p>Lawler used to train at American Top Team, the gym Covington still calls home, and the pair actually got quite a bit of training in together over the years. Usman believes their previous training sessions could definitely play a psychological role in their fight \u2014 though he&#8217;s not sure who will benefit.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"&quot;I heard he&#039;s not that good with money&quot; Kamaru Usman goes in on Colby Covington\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/y8dUnNhdqHM?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\u201cRobbie\u2019s got bricks in his hands,\u201d Usman told BT Sport (transcript via <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmanews.com\/kamaru-usman-theorizes-why-colby-covington-accepted-lawler-fight\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">MMA News<\/a>). \u201cAnd we saw what he did to Askren. They used to train together. So I don\u2019t know what happened in those training sessions, so there could be a psychological advantage either to Robbie or towards Colby, so I have no idea [who wins].&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Covington, of course, was widely expected to be booked for a title fight against Usman, but was ultimately scheduled for this fight with Lawler instead. Usman believes there&#8217;s a few reasons for that.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m just as lost as everybody,\u201d he said. \u201cI mean, I think it was one of those situations where\u2026you\u2019re not the champion. You can\u2019t sit and dictate that \u2018I\u2019m gonna fight for the belt. He\u2019s been out for over a year. And I\u2019m the champion. He was kind of that situation to where I\u2019m pretty sure he\u2019s not very good with money, I\u2019ve heard. You haven\u2019t fought in over a year. I\u2019m sure those bank accounts are starting to hurt. And on top of it, you can\u2019t dictate. So I think it was a fight they presented to him, and he had no options. He had to take the fight.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>What do you think of these comments from Kamaru Usman? Is the champ right?<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><i>This article first appeared on\u00a0<\/i><a href=\"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/\"><span class=\"s1\"><i>BJPENN.COM<\/i><\/span><\/a><i>\u00a0on 7\/31\/2019. <\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Saturday night, in the main event of UFC Newark, former interim welterweight champ Colby Covington will step into the cage with former undisputed welterweight champ Robbie Lawler in a bout that could produce the next welterweight title challenger. As such, reigning champ Kamaru Usman will be watching the action closely. Lawler used to train [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54430,"featured_media":297845,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[22188,10616,10152,39610],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v19.7 (Yoast SEO v19.14) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Kamaru Usman: There could be psychological aspect in Lawler vs. Covington matchup | BJPenn.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"UFC welterweight champion Kamaru Usman weighs in on the imminent showdown between former champs Robbie Lawler and Colby Covington.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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