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Why did Colby Covington get a title shot at UFC 296?
Immediately following the end of Leon Edwards’s competitive trilogy with Kamaru Usman, Daniel Cormier played his part in the promotional plan to usher the controversial Colby Covington into another welterweight title shot:
“I know you want to rest and bask in this, but what do you want to see next? I know you’re the champ and I know they’re supposed to call your name, but there’s a guy here that likes to talk and he’s sitting in the crowd and he’ll be looking for a fight”
Edwards was dismissive in his response:
“That man sat out for like a year and a half, two years. He ain’t fought nobody. I might take a little trip to Miami, see what them two welterweights have going on with them. I’ll see what’s going on from there.
It was March of 2023 when Edwards closed the chapter on his career rivalry and Covington had already been without a fight for twelve months. Edwards tried to divert attention to the imminent clash between former title challengers Gilbert Burns and Jorge Masvidal.
There was no way Edwards was going to convince the UFC to select his next challenger meritocratically. The presence of Covington in London for Edwards’s first title defense was as sure a sign as any that the matchmakers had already made up their mind.
I’m not going to pretend that prize fighting hasn’t always been about selling the most tickets, but perhaps UFC 296 can serve as a bit of a lesson. While it’s probably true that a polarizing figure like Covington draws somewhat more attention, at the end of the day people want to see good fights.
At thirty-five years old and with his last victory over a currently active welterweight coming five and a half years prior, it is perhaps no surprise that Covington wasn’t able to offer that.
Given Covington’s lack of competitive success at the top of the welterweight division, is there cause for concern for Edwards’s inability to definitively shut him out of the fight? Is it fair to look at this as a thorough outclassing, only lacking damage due to Covington’s timidity or perhaps Edwards should have a larger share of the blame for not taking out an overmatched opponent?
To answer that question, we’ll have to examine Edwards’s performance and reverse engineering the gameplan. Then we can surmise if there was room for improvement or if there is cause for concern in future fights with increasingly dangerous contenders.
The initial plan at UFC 296
It was clear from the very initial moments of the UFC 296 fight that Edwards wasn’t going to let Covington be the one moving forward. It cannot be overstated just how important it was for Edwards the get the directionality of this fight correct.
Edwards is not a committed pressure fighter but he’s not an out-fighter either. He’s a sharpshooter that prefers to sit at range and work single shots and setups, wearing opponents down or capitalizing on their reckless aggression when they attempt to close range (traditionally this would fall into the “boxer-puncher” archetype). That means that he has options when deciding how to maintain that range:
- He can move backwards and use lateral movement to avoid getting trapped against the fence
- Or he can choose to be the one pressuring and rely on scaring his opponent into moving backwards
The problem with the first option against a fighter like Covington is that anytime Edwards is anywhere near to having his back to the fence is an opportunity for relentless takedowns and chain wrestling. Edwards recognized this and was determined not to let Covington repeat the success Usman had in their first two meetings.
A unique approach that Edwards flirted with for the first several minutes of the UFC 296 main event was sticking in an orthodox stance to force the open stance matchup against his fellow southpaw. It was clear that Covington was expecting primarily a closed stance matchup because he kept switching to orthodox himself to try to mirror Edwards’s stance despite never demonstrating that he had any weapons from that stance.
Edwards and Covington played this stance dance for a few minutes without throwing many shots, but at this point we could forgive a bit of a feeling out process from both. Covington was likely not expecting Edwards to pressure from orthodox and Edwards was waiting to see how Covington would react.
UFC 296: Finding what works
Even though Edwards was able to contribute to Covington’s hesitancy by coming out in orthodox at UFC 296, ultimately he would find his most consistent success in his native southpaw stance.
The outside low kick to the lead leg of Covington provided Edwards with a consistent attritive weapon. Covington only began to try to check the kicks after it was too late.
This is where we can start to find some blame to place for the tepid fight. It’s hard to understand why Covington would continue to circle on the outside and largely look resistant to engage while he was having his lead leg torn to shreds. However, when Covington did try to lunge forward into his offense, he found himself running into Edwards’s counters.
Part of Edwards’s success countering Covington is due to Covington’s wonky punching mechanics. The way he flares his elbow when throwing his right hand is a particularly obvious tell.
It didn’t take a lot of counters from Edwards to dissuade Covington from throwing committed strikes, but given Covington’s lack of punching nous it’s fair to criticize Edwards…
Read the rest of the post over at our Substack page.
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