UFC 268, 14 fights scheduled as of Sunday
Location: Madison Square Garden, New York City
Early prelims: 6:00 PM eastern
Prelims: 8:00 PM eastern
Main card: 10:00 PM eastern
Colby Covington:
"The biggest mistake was keeping my hands down, taking a lot of unanswered shots, and just no head movement. Now I’m working with coach Cesar and we’re working real hard on our head movement and our timing. I didn’t have those things before.”
“I didn’t know how to move my head and I did not know how to have the right timing. So now we have put all these pieces together, you know the puzzles solved and November 6 we gotta show that in front of the world.”
Covington revealed his disgust at the odds and branded those responsible for them as “losers.”
“Absolutely. And I know I am the underdog. The oddsmakers, they’re fools, too. They’re all losers. These guys have never worked hard in their life. They don’t know what it’s like to go earn something, so they want to peg him as a 2 to 1 favorite (-225, 69.2%), it’s a joke, man. It’s a mockery of the sport.”
Covington went on to suggest that Usman’s victories over “little lightweights” were not impressive. The 33-year-old added that the champ is following his path, something the oddsmakers will apparently see when the two 170-pound stars go toe-to-toe inside the Octagon again.
“But they don’t know the sport. They’re watching him beat these little lightweights, these little guys that he’s supposed to beat, these guys that I’ve already beaten years ago, he’s following in my footsteps. If I make a sandwich, he’s gonna make the sandwich the same way. And they think he’s a god now. ‘He’s the pound-for-pound #1, he’s knocking people out,’ blah, blah, blah. OK, we’ll see.”
-Colby Covington
Kamaru Usman:
“He’s definitely up there,” Usman said. “I’m no hater, I give props where props are due. I think Colby probably is, I would put him in the top-15 welterweights of all time, as far as fighter-wise and skill-wise, the way that he fights. You may not like him personally, which I really don’t, but as far as skill-wise, he’s a good fighter. A very, very good fighter.”
In the time since the competitors last met, Covington has fought just once, claiming a fifth-round stoppage of his own over former welterweight titleholder Tyron Woodley. As for Usman, he has gone on to stake his claim as one of the pound-for-pound best currently fighting, taking victories over Gilbert Burns and Jorge Masvidal (twice). Regardless of what both men have gone through since their first meeting, Usman expects their rematch to be more of the same.
“I think we were both content with understanding that was a Mano a Mano, we needed to duke it out, we needed to go back in the day and just throw fisticuffs and see who got the better of the other,” Usman said. “I told him, I said I would punish him for four and a half rounds and I would finish him and that’s exactly what I did. I think in this next fight he’s gonna try to be a little more strategic but he’s going to quickly realize that’s not gonna work so you’re just stuck in there getting beat up.”
“It doesn’t matter. Finish or not, the way I fight I want to dominate a guy from start to finish,” Usman said. “I want to out-class a guy. I want a guy to go home, when they lay down in bed at night they’re like, ‘S–t, that guy’s better than me. There was nothing I can do to beat him.’ That’s what I want. That’s the feeling that I want to live with these guys each and every time they compete against me. So whether I finish him or not, I want him to have that feeling. But of course, the finish is great and that’s something that people highly anticipate from me right now.”
-Kamaru Usman
