After months of teasing a move up to middleweight, Colby Covington wants to stay at 170 for his theoretical fight on the UFC White House card. And Bo Nickal believes he’s the reason for “Chaos” suddenly switching things up.
In January, Covington said 185 was looking like his new home following his dominant win over middleweight Luke Rockhold at Real American Freestyle 5.
“I felt good at this weight class, and I know I’d do good at 185,” Covington said at the time. “I have unlimited endurance, so at Middleweight I’d have even more of an advantage. I felt stronger than him tonight, and I know he probably weighs 20 or 30 pounds more than me. You might see me in my next fight — maybe at the White House — at Middleweight.”
But now Colby has a new target: Paddy Pimblett, a lightweight who he wants to fight at welterweight — purely for Pimblett health reasons, of course.
“He’s cutting a lot of weight to get to 155. He’s like two hundred pounds. He looks like s–t. Even the doctors told him, they’re like, ‘Dude, your organs are gonna fail if you keep cutting to lightweight.’ Pretty much telling him, ‘You need to go up a weight class.’ So I love that fight.”
Covington hasn’t been very active over the past few years, and seems content to sit on the sidelines unless a favorable match-up or big enough paycheck presents itself. For the White House card, he’s declared his opponent needs to be a non-American.
“It’s a fight where it’s an American versus a British guy,” Covington said of the Pimblett fight. “Yeah, I don’t wanna fight an American guy on the American card, on the 200th birthday of America.”
That conveniently rules out a fight with Bo Nickal, who has been chasing Covington aggressively since Colby talked some trash at him last month.
“Colby talks crap about me then says he wants to move to 185,” Nickal said. “I say okay let’s fight at the White House. Now he’s trying to run away. What a wimp. Man up and take your beating Colby.”
Covington clearly doesn’t want to fight Nickal, a three-time NCAA Division I champion whose wrestling pedigree is leaps and bounds beyond anything Colby achieved. So long as Nickal is waiting for him at middleweight, we expect Covington to stay at welterweight … and keep calling out lightweights, probably.
