Returning to action for the first time in almost a year, Colby Covington is set to take on Joaquin Buckley this coming Saturday in the UFC Tampa main event.
Colby Covington‘s last outing came against Leon Edwards last December where he was once again unsuccessful in an undisputed welterweight title fight.
Since then, ‘Chaos’ has been recovering from a broken foot suffered in that fight, but he hasn’t been short of fight offers.
Colby Covington denies turning down fights against Ian Machado Garry and Shavkat Rakhmonov
After losing to Edwards, Covington seemingly turned his attention to Ian Machado Garry, as he continuously targeted him in online attacks, potentially looking to set up a fight with the Irishman.
‘The Future’ stated on several occasions that he wanted to fight ‘Chaos’, however, he continuously claimed that the former interim champion was ducking him and even claimed that he was offered a fight against Covington for UFC Tampa, but Colby turned it down.
Earlier this month, a welterweight title fight was scheduled between Belal Muhammad and Shavkat Rakhmonov, but after Muhammad withdrew, Rakhmonov was left with not many options.
One of which according to him, was Covington but ‘The Nomad’ claimed that Covington also turned down the late notice opportunity to fight him.
“That’s fake news, that’s a complete lie, you can ask Dana White, you can ask Hunter Campbell, those guys have said multiple times, ‘Colby does not turn down fights’,” he began to explain in an interview with Shak MMA.
“I accepted to fight Shavkat, I wanted to fight him on short notice last week and they didn’t want to go in that direction, they were like ‘Hey go and beat Buckley and we can get you a fight with one of them next fight’.
“As far as Ian Garry, that fight’s never been offered to me. I told him you have three stipulations if you wanna fight me because what does fighting him do for my career, he’s a cuck… He does nothing for my career, he has no accomplishments,” Covington continued.
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Covington reacts to Ian Machado Garry and Shavkat Rakhmonov’s fight at UFC 310
Rakhmonov went on to maintain his undefeated record by scoring a unanimous decision win over Garry and following the fight, he faced off with current champ, Belal Muhammad.
Despite that, Covington believes he can leapfrog the Kazakh and take his title shot from him considering the fact both he and the Irishman got ‘exposed’ during their UFC 310 clash.
“They’re not ready for the spotlight, the main event five-round spotlight. They’ve been good against guys that are up-and-comers that are no names in three rounds but now you’re talking about guys that have been here.
“Garry and Shavkat, they got exposed, you know, there’s a lot of hype around those guys and they didn’t prove it last week, neither one of them so I don’t see anything there that’s spectacular,” Covington claimed.