UFC 268’s Colby Covington on Usman: “I Can’t Respect A Guy Like That”

New York, NY — UFC welterweight contender Colby Covington may have lost the rematch with champion Kamaru Usman, but he’s not ready to completely bury the hatchet just yet.

Covington lost a unanimous decision to Usman on Saturday night, in the main event of UFC 268 at Madison Square Garden.

Following the fight, Covington and Usman seemed to come together in a show of respect and shared a few words with each other. When it hit the press conference however, “Chaos” was back on that attack when it came to Usman.

“I can’t respect a guy like that. Go look on YouTube. The guy dissected everything that, you know, he cheats on. You see those injection marks all over his thumb. The guy’s not a clean fighter. I’m a clean fighter,” proclaimed Covington. “I’m raw American steel and twisted sex appeal. I did this the hard way.”

Never too far from his mind is his next step, with Covington calling for a fight with a former roommate of his on his path back to another title shot.

“I’ll fight whoever it takes to get back there. I think the most logical step is the heated rivalry with me and my old roommate ‘Street Judas’ Masvidal. He should probably pull out of that fight with Leon Scott and we should just run it. Let’s run it in the first quarter of the first part of the year and let’s do it. That’s a heated rivalry. He talks so much sh*t in the media and said so many things about me. Look at what happened when he fought Marty. He got dusted. If he fought me he would get dusted even worse.”

Even after all of that Covington, did admit to at least a little bit of respect for Usman although it came with more of a backhanded compliment than anything.

“There was a little bit of respect for each other. Even though he’s cut corners and I’ve never had to cut corners in my career. I came here the long way, I earned this. Blood, sweat and tears the hard way. Never cheated, never cut corners. I’m just a blue collar kid from Oregon in these big fights.”

It seems as though the story of Covington vs. Usman is far from over.

Official Result: Kamaru Usman (c) def. Colby Covington by unanimous decision (48-47, 48-47, 49-46) 

Watch the entire post-fight media scrum with Colby Covington above and keep it here for more coverage from UFC 268.