The antagonist: Colby Covington’s obnoxious persona delivers him to another massive fight at UFC 296

By Case Keefer (contact)

Thursday, Dec. 14, 2023 | 2 a.m.

Leon Edwards was trying to soak in the brightest moment of his career having just defended his UFC welterweight championship for the first time in front of his home country at the O2 Arena in London. The man sitting in the front row sporting the fuchsia, velvet suit jacket with an American flag pinned to the lapel wouldn’t allow it.

Sharp-dressed welterweight peer Colby Covington began relentlessly heckling Edwards, tearing down his unanimous-decision victory over Kamaru Usman and trying to secure the next title fight. Edwards wasn’t buying it.

“I don’t know how that makes sense,” Edwards said of facing Covington in a news conference later that night. “He hasn’t fought in over a year and a half. He sat out un-injured. I just don’t get how he slides in for the world title shot when there are other guys who have been active, fighting and didn’t sit out … I’m the king now. I’ve earned my way, I feel like I should decide who’s next.”

Covington is next.

Money and polarizing figures tend to win out in combat sports. The 35-year-old Covington produces a lot of the former, largely because of the latter.

When he walks out at T-Mobile Arena on December 16 to challenge Edwards in the main event of UFC 296, the crowd will respond with a mix of cheers and boos. The cheers typically win out in America, but that’s certainly not the case when he fights internationally.

Covington has tapped into the classic fighting trope of expressing jingoistic views to alienate many but ingratiate himself to others.

“I see it looking a lot like 1776,” Covington said in a news conference of the matchup with Edwards. “I see him going home in a pine box.”

The lead-up to Covington’s last fight, a unanimous-decision win over Jorge Masvidal at UFC 272 in March 2022, got a lot uglier and more personal than that. Masvidal and Covington were former friends and training partners who had a falling-out to create one of the biggest grudge matches in UFC history.

It didn’t end up being fully settled in the octagon either as Masvidal ended up arrested for assault after attacking Covington two weeks later outside of a Miami restaurant.

The discord between Edwards and Covington doesn’t run as deep. The 32-year-old Edwards’ main point of contention is that he doesn’t feel like Covington has earned the right to face him.

The victory over Masvidal, in which Covington was heavily favored, is the challenger’s only appearance since a pair of failed bids at the title while Usman was the champion.

Usman broke Covington’s jaw for a TKO victory at UFC 245 in December 2019 at T-Mobile and then outpointed him in a rematch at UFC 268 in November 2021 at Madison Square Garden. The decision in the second fight was relatively clear, though Covington refuses to admit defeat and says he should be the rightful champion.

“I had to work 12 fights to get (to a title fight),” Edwards said. “When I was trying to get my title fight, he was saying, ‘Who is he?’ and ‘I don’t know who he is.’ Now he is allowed to just jump the line and jump straight in?”

Covington reportedly turned down several fight offers while holding out hope for a championship assignment, though he denies that ever happening. He also defends fighting for the title despite a period of inactivity by saying no one is interested in watching the other 170-pound contenders.

Covington took great joy in giving Edwards vs. Usman 3 a promotional boost by flying to London on short notice and making weight as a backup fighter in case one of the two scheduled main-eventers were unable to compete.

“They can’t draw flies to sh*t,” Covington said of Edwards and Usman. “They can’t draw money with a green crayon and a white piece of paper so I’m here to save the division and make the UFC great again.”

UFC president Dana White said Covington was entitled to a fight against Edwards because of the way he professionally handled acting as a reserve in London. That was a baffling justification considering it’s standard operating procedure for the UFC to have another fighter ready and waiting in the wings ahead of its biggest events.

The not-so-secret truth as to why Covington is getting a third shot at an undisputed title—he did briefly hold the interim welterweight title via a victory over Rafael dos Anjos in 2018—is because he generates buzz and boosts sales. It wasn’t always this way.

Covington started his UFC tenure as an unspectacular former collegiate wrestler (at Oregon State and Iowa) mostly stuck on preliminary cards. But then he began playing up the offensive trash talk, and people started to take notice.

He’s not going to apologize for it, especially not now. The brashness has once again put Covington right where he wants to be.

“It’s been a great time to reflect and that burning desire in my heart is still there,” Covington said of his layoff. “I want this more than ever. I want to show the world who the greatest fighter in the UFC is, and that’s me—the No. 1 pound-for-pound, the people’s champ, America’s champ, Donald Trump’s favorite fighter. He’s coming back with a vengeance soon.”

This story appeared in Las Vegas Weekly.