Former UFC Interim Welterweight Champion Colby Covington and UFC Welterweight Champion Kamaru Usman were reportedly set to meet at UFC 244 before negotiations fell through, canceling the bout.
Covington claimed that the UFC didn’t properly negotiate with him for the bout and now the former champion says that the promotion uses slave labor negotiations.
“That’s how UFC does business, they do the bully tactics,” Covington said to BJPenn.com. “They do the slave labor negotiations. It’s sick man. They don’t want to pay any of the fighters because they want everybody to be poor, so they keep back coming back and fighting all the time, and fighting six times a year.”
Jorge Masvidal and Nate Diaz are now going to be headlining the card, with the winner becoming the BMF Champion.
The former interim champion also claims that some tomfoolery went down when he fought Robbie Lawler at UFC Fight Night Newark.
“They said, ‘Oh, show up for the Robbie Lawler fight,’” Covington said. “And needless to say, Robbie was training for 12 weeks for that fight. He was getting ready for [Tyron] Woodley. . . So I showed up on four weeks’ notice, without a training camp because I got a nasty cut from a head butt in the first week in training camp. I couldn’t even train. Pretty much had to run on the treadmill every day, that’s it. That’s not training timing, accuracy, all that. So I showed up with no camp, to save the UFC, to save the main event, to bring the First Family, to get the President Tweeting about the UFC. To get all the troops all over the world watching in their bases because I’m America’s and the troops’ favorite fighter [and] the UFC still doesn’t do good for me. I make them millions and millions and they just continue to just pocket all that money, and they don’t want to pay me a fraction — not even five percent of any of that money. It’s ridiculous how they can pocket 95, 98 percent and not give the fighters anymore than the two or three percent.”
This isn’t the first time Covington and the UFC have been at odds, as they were going back and forth before his return at UFC Fight Night Newark.
