Colby Covington says UFC is ‘corrupt’ after title fight negotiations stalled
Colby Covington is not happy with the UFC as of right now.
After he beat Robbie Lawler at UFC Newark, in a fight he took on short notice, he was supposed to get a title shot. However, reports came out that negotiations between Kamaru Usman and Covington hit a snag and they were heading in a different direction.
If Covington does indeed get passed up, it would not be the first time he was. He won the interim title at UFC 225, yet never fought for the title. Instead, it was Darren Till and then Kamaru Usman who got the title fights. For “Chaos” he believes the UFC is corrupt for how they are handling this situation. Especially, after they promised a title shot for stepping in on short notice to fight at UFC Newark.
“That is accurate. It’s crazy, it’s corrupt and it’s not right,” Covington said to MMA Fighting. “The fighters need to learn a piece of advice from me and learn from my situation that you’ve got to stand up for what you believe in and what you earn more importantly. The company’s killing it. 30 percent growth last quarter, making billions, the ESPN deal, sponsor revenue, they’re absolutely killing it and they’re going to go public soon and they don’t want to pay the fighters. I’m one of one.”
“No one has done what I’ve done, no one has broke the record for most strikes thrown in a fight, no one went to the White House. No one’s hung out with the Trumps in Trump Tower. I’ve done things that no one has ever done before and look how the UFC treats me. How do you think they’re going to treat other guys who haven’t even done half of what I’ve done?”
Why Covington turned down the fight offer was simple.
He says the UFC came with one offer and said take it or leave it. It was also a basic challenger rate, which he says it not fair given the fact he was the interim champion.
“What happened exactly was the UFC came to me and offered me a basic challenger’s rate,” Covington explained. “I said no, I’m not challenging. I’m champion. I’ve never lost, I just defended my title. I brought in the Trumps. I got a tweet from [Donald] Trump, that’s like $3.5 million in marketing. If you break down the analytics of it, in itself, just to promote their show. ’ve put my life on the line for this company. Went to Brazil, said outlandish things where people literally wanted to kill me and I had gangs in favelas coming after me and they still want to come at me with this basic challenger, entry fee type money? I’m standing up for what’s right.”
In the end, Colby Covington is not happy with the UFC’s negotiation tactic as he says it a ‘corrupt and unfair.’ They only gave him one offer and didn’t even try to negotiate at all with him.
“They didn’t give me a negotiation. They said ‘take this or we’ll just move onto someone else’. That’s not negotiating, that’s bad business. And if that’s how they want to do business, that’s their problem. That’s not my problem,” Covington said. They came with those hostage negotiations. They come and say ‘take this offer or we’ll just move onto the next person’. That’s not how negotiating works. I read ‘Art of the Deal’ from Donald Trump. I know how to work a deal and how deals work. They’re not going to take advantage of me and try to put me in a hostage position where they don’t give me any say or any room to negotiate. That’s not fair and it’s not right.”
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The Scrap’s Cole Shelton is a full-time MMA writer for various news outlets. Make sure to follow Cole on Twitter (@ColeShelton91) for a variety of content.
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