Colby Covington has done everything in his power to earn a title shot against Tyron Woodley. He’s now holding a gold belt of his own, after beating Rafael dos Anjos to win the interim welterweight strap at UFC 225 last weekend.
That does not mean, however, that Covington is going to take his foot off the gas when it comes to running Woodley down verbally. Despite there being no other direction to go in the 170-pound division besides Woodley vs. Covington, “Chaos” took it to Woodley yet again on a recent episode of The MMA Hour.
“Tyquil, there’s nowhere else to run,” Covington said. “There’s nowhere else to hide. What you gonna do now? No more rap albums. I know all the people hate me, but if you really want to hate me, go look on Google and try to listen to this dude rap. That’s why he’s trying to come fight. That’s why he’s begging to fight me now, because his rap album is failing. He’s got baby mamas to pay. That dude is a joke, man. His B-list acting career that goes straight to DVD, it is no more. Don’t worry, Tyquil. I’m sending you to sleep for good, motherf*cker.”
Woodley blasted Covington a day after he beat dos Anjos by unanimous decision to capture the interim belt. The next day, Woodley continued his own onslaught with some of the most impassioned words he’s ever stated about an opponent publicly.
“It’s not like he’s just going out there and just saying something he believes,” Woodley said. “He’s staging and premeditating very controversial, very racial, very socially insensitive statements, and he can’t back it up. He’s talked himself into a fight with me. The problem is, when they lock this Octagon, I’m gonna unleash an ass-whooping on him that nobody has every experienced — and he can’t run. He can’t out-strike me. He can’t out-wrestle me. And anybody can get in shape, brother. You think cardio gonna beat me? Let me see you put your chin on the treadmill. Let me see the cardio of your chin, because he hasn’t been hit like I’m gonna hit him. RDA don’t possess that power.”
The UFC will have a legitimate grudge match on their hands when Covington and Woodley finally clash — two men who have trained together before at American Top Team. They obviously both have different interpretations of how those past sessions went. Covington says he thrashed Woodley in the Coconut Creek, Fla., training room.
“Every single round, every single time,” Covington said. “He literally never took one round off me. First round, he would be so tired trying to get oxygen to those muscles. The second round would just be easy pickings to me. I would pick him apart, do whatever I want to him. That’s the real reason he never wanted to talk to me again, after I gave him enough beatings. He was like, ‘Nah, I’m not doing this anymore.’”
Things are so bad between them that Woodley has blocked Covington on social media, Covington said. Covington believes that’s a statement on the fact that he’s in Woodley’s head.
“I don’t see anything he says,” Covington said. “Anything he says is fake news. He just tries to come out in the media, he’s trying to steal my spotlight. He knows I’m the real world champ. He’s got that fool’s gold at home. If he has something to say, he can say it to my face or unblock me and say it to me and let me see it, like a real man.”
Woodley has not fought since beating Demian Maia at UFC 214 in July 2017. He has been out recovering from shoulder surgery. In the meantime, Covington defeated Maia and dos Anjos and has used his words — and embrace of hard right-wing politics — to gain more attention.
Whatever Covington has done has worked. He’s going to get the fight he wanted. And he said that he will “embarrass [Woodley] in front of the whole world.”
“He’s a little two-pump chump,” Covington said. “He won’t last more than two rounds.”
