Colby Covington Thinks Kamaru Usman Orchestrated Casino Fight to Screw Him Out of Title Shot

Colby Covington isn’t shy about discussing his altercation with Kamaru Usman that took place in a casino after UFC 235. Covington spoke with MMA Weekly on Tuesday to discuss the situation, reiterating much of what he said previously on Ariel Helwani’s show. Covington now believes Usman and his manager Ali Abdelaziz set the whole thing up to cost him his title shot against Usman.

Highlights from Covington’s comments are below:

On why he thinks they orchestrated the fight: “After I thought back and though about it all day, I know why they did that. They want me to lose my title shot. They’re threatened. They know that Usman has no chance to beat me so they wanted me to do something irrational. They wanted me to take a swing on them and lose my shot at the title but it’s not going to happen. I’m here to make the welterweight division great again and I can’t do that if I’m swinging on someone in the public. Obviously, they came over trying to get me to lose my cool. They wanted me to throw a punch. They wanted me to jeopardize my chances at a world title fight. You see, Ali’s already trying to call for Ben Askren to fight Usman. Ben Askren wasn’t even impressive. He doesn’t even have a legit win in the UFC yet. Not one that the refs didn’t give him. So you see Ali, they had a plan, they wanted me to do something crazy that was going to f**k my title fight but I’m not going to do it. I am a bad guy but I’m a bad guy for hire. I leave this s**t in the Octagon. I’m just waiting. I’m counting down the days.”

On a fight with Usman: “What we found out with that incident, we found out that ‘Marty Snoozeman’s fake injury saying his foot’s all hurt, that’s all fake news. He was sprinting f**king to come and get me. Like I literally saw him sprint from the front of the Palms line to the middle of the line to me, he jumps over a rail, got right in my f**king face. He’s mighty fine to fight, we need to run this s**t quick cause I’m going to end his career.”