Kamaru Usman and Colby Covington are on a collision course.
The top UFC welterweights got into a heated confrontation after last weekend’s UFC Newark. It got to the point that security had to stand in between them. They’ll now move on to a perceived title bout later this year. The fight will expectedly feature a bad blood-fueled buildup, and for good reason.
Just how brutal it can potentially be has already surfaced this week.
Fans Asking Usman To ‘Kill’ Covington
Usman revealed today to TMZ Sports (via MMA Junkie) that thousands of fans have been messaging him on social media not only asking him to beat Covington. They want him to ‘kill’ him:
“I’ve been deleting messages for the past two days from Instagram. I’ve just deleted, deleted, deleted messages – thousands of messages on Instagram – of people saying: ‘Bro, you’ve gotta kill this dude.’ It’s not ‘beat him,’ it’s ‘kill this guy,’ ‘kill him for us,’ ‘I want him done worse than Askren was.’
“People have malicious intent for this guy, myself included, and I’m just blessed to be able to go out there and do it.”
Rubbing People The Wrong Way
Usman opened up on his views of why Covington is so disliked. He believes it’s contradictory to the soul of martial arts. Because of that, anyone and everyone want to sock ‘Chaos’ in the face:
“When you get a guy like Covington, who’s bringing the WWE aspect of entertainment into it, it rubs a lot of people the wrong way,” he said. “People don’t like that because they know the basis of what mixed martial arts was built upon. So that’s the big hang-up of why people hate this (guy) so much.
“And, all around, he’s just a big douche – let’s just be honest … He not only rubs everyone the wrong way, it makes people want to punch you in the face now – and I’m talking women and children, grandmas, not just fighters.”
Not The ‘People’s Champ’
Covington claims he people want to watch him fight more than anyone, but the gate numbers for UFC Newark may disagree. Usman does as well. The champion claims the so-called ‘People’s Champ’ is far from a favorite of the real people:
“He can’t enjoy it,” Usman said. “He’s calling himself ‘The People’s Champ,’ but you can’t be with the people, because the people want to harm you. You have to walk around with security each and everywhere you go because they want to harm you, not because they love you.”
Do you agree with the legions of fans supposedly begging Usman to ‘kill’ Covington?
