While it wasn’t confirmed who the backup will be for the welterweight championship until the very last minute, the cat was out of the bag once Colby Covington stepped on the scales.
He successfully made 170lbs and put an ending to rumors he wasn’t going to be active in the UFC due to litigation he has going against Jorge Masvidal.
This created a lot of heat and the publicity for Covington’s presence almost trumped the main event.
UFC seemed to be upbeat about the whole thing with president Dana White declaring Covington will be given a title shot after UFC 286 despite the fact he was inactive for 15 plus months and stepped away from the public eye.
This brought back a familiar memory. A rare moment when Covington was outtalked at an interview, and some might even say verbally destroyed.
Former UFC middleweight champion Michael Bisping is known for his trash-talking abilities, but during the post show for UFC 225, his antics may have overshadowed the newly crowned interim welterweight champion, Colby Covington.
The exchange began with Covington taking aim at Bisping’s boxing coach, Jason Parillo, who also happens to be the coach of Rafael dos Anjos, whom Covington had just defeated for the interim welterweight championship.
Bisping, never one to back down from a verbal confrontation, quickly escalated the situation by calling Covington a “prick” and an “idiot.”
“You came at me hard, now I’m going to come at your hard,” he said the next time it came around to him to ask a question. “Do you actually consider yourself the welterweight champion of the world? — because I’m pretty sure that Tyron Woodley actually lays claim to that.”
Covington, known for his inflammatory remarks, fired back at Bisping by claiming that he was the undisputed champion and that Tyron Woodley, the current welterweight champion, was hiding from him. Bisping continued to question Covington’s legitimacy, which only seemed to embolden the new champion. The exchange culminated in Covington making a personal attack on Bisping’s eye, which felt below the belt.
Here Covington stuck his tongue out.
“Nah, he doesn’t lay claim to nothing man, this is my belt,” he said. “I’m the undisputed champ. Tyron Woodley, he’s been hiding man. We were supposed to fight, Bispin…”
(Covington pronounces Bisping’s name as Bispin).
“…whether you want to say it, look at the facts — the UFC offered him the fight last December. He’s hiding, he’s been ducking everybody in the division. He doesn’t want to fight. I’m here to make the division great again. And you know what I’m going to do to make the division great again? I’m going to the White House and I’m putting this on Donald Trump’s desk.”
“Do you have the invite to go to the White House, or is that another figment of the imagination, like being the champ?” Bisping wondered.
That’s when Covington, the game’s self-proclaimed supervillain, went ahead and went there.
“Ah, the only figment of my imagination is that you must not be seeing right out of that one eye.”
While Bisping’s ability to talk trash is impressive, his behavior during the show seemed out of place. But considering all of Covington’s remarks over the years, perhaps he deserved to be taken down a peg.