Colby Covington calls Leon Edwards a "bum" after eye-poke incident

...and I agree with Covington on this one when you read into the full story. Covington does have a history of running his mouth in order to create controversy that will get him the bigger paychecks which is something I don't normally like in a fighter but whatever, it does make Colby's fights more interesting because he always enters the fight with an opponent that is truly pissed off at him.

This might be part of his strategy as well... to get his opponents rattled.

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In a recent interview Covington took the time to shoot on Leon Edwards because after his "no contest" fight vs Belal Muhammad. As you may recall the fight was stopped because of an inadvertent eye-poke that was ruled by Herb Dean to be accidental. This is a subject of some controversy in itself because if you go back and watch the fight, Edwards had already been warned by the ref about eye pokes in round one. This is something I noticed as well

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Eye pokes happen, no contest results happen, it is part of the sport and is unavoidable because of the way the sport is set up. But that isn't the problem that Covington, and myself, have with this situation. The problem we have is that Leon Edwards, while apologetic, wants to move on past this and feels as though he has done enough to earn him a title shot.... which is just absurd if you ask me.

He hasn't fought for 2 years or so and while this is blamed on Covid, that hasn't been around for 2 years. Covington had this to say

“I’ve watched little tapes from here, bits and pieces from the past, and I don’t see anything special. I see a bum. I see a guy that hasn’t fought in two years. What’s the criteria for the rankings? How is he still in the rankings? I know that before they pulled him out of the rankings because of the inactivity and he was ducking fights

Therein lies the same problem I have with Edwards. How can you be ranked 3rd when you haven't fought in 2 years? Then, when you do finally return, you have a somewhat impressive display against a guy that is 11 spots below you in the rankings and the fight ends because you do an illegal eye poke? And this somehow makes you think that you deserve a shot at the belt? That's a bunch of nonsense. It's almost as if it benefits fighters more to make their way into the top 5 and then sit on their asses and wait for the others to all lose until you are the only one left who hasn't had a shot at the belt. This sort of UFC politics and maneuvering to get into a fight that you don't really deserve is stupid.

You should have to work your way up just like everyone else.

The UFC had been pushing for an Edwards v. Covington fight but Colby came out and said that the money was not right and these are my words, he thinks that he is worth more than the kind of money that a fight vs Edwards is going to bring.

Edwards doesn't bring much to the table and this is deserved. He has been gone for so long that I honestly forgot that he was still and "active" fighter.

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Of course this could all just be intentional hype being created by Covington so that Edwards, who has had nasty to things to say about Covington in the past as well, would be a bigger draw and therefore a bigger paycheck should Covington agree to fight him before an Usman rematch is awarded.

At the end of the day Covington has a good point about Edwards not deserving a title shot after fighting a single round in 2 years but at the same time we all know that he is trying to keep himself in the limelight and stir up as much controversy as possible in order to keep those paychecks as high as possible.

Would you like to see and Edwards Covington match? I know that I would and I think that Colby would clean the floor with him.