nasty

Kamaru Usman looks to have hospitalised Colby Covington again as ‘Chaos’ seen on crutches at UFC 268, having suffered a broken jaw in their first fight

by · talkSPORT

Colby Covington felt the force of Kamaru Usman once again.

The pair first fought at UFC 245 almost two years ago where Usman broke Covington’s jaw en route to a fifth round TKO victory.

Just like their first fight, Usman and Covington got into a real war againGETTY
Covington appeared to have his jaw broken by Usman in their first fight, but this is disputed by the welterweight

This time at UFC 268, Covington went the distance with Usman but the end result was the same: A win for the Nigerian Nightmare and an injury for Chaos.

Covington was spotted after the event leaving Madison Square Garden on crutches. While it’s unknown exactly what his injury is, the American was moving gingerly to say the least.

The broken jaw was disputed by Covington as recently as this week as was an X-ray reported to have been his.

“It definitely wasn’t broken,” Covington told ESPN. “He landed a clean strike, it was a good strike, but it was not a broken jaw.

“I’m tougher than anybody, I can endure anything. I knew going into that fight, a lot of people already had a biased opinion against me, so I kind of wanted to sit back and reflect [after].

“I didn’t want to come out and say anything. I wanted to see how the media was going to spin it. The things they were going to say. Were they going to bring up the things that happened in the fight?

“It was one of the worst photoshops, let me say, in the history of this sport. Someone went and took an image from Google, they put my name on [the X-ray] photo Colby Covington and first off, if you ever read an X-ray film, it’ll never read your name straight across. It’ll look backwards.”

This X-Ray, apparently of Covington’s broken jaw, is fake according to the man himself

This time, Covington didn’t seem to offer any excuses – photoshop or otherwise – and actually showed some rare respect to the champion at the end of their contest.

The first two rounds were comfortably Usman’s and it seemed like the finish may be on the cards if he kept the pressure up. The left hooks were causing Covington all kinds of problems, but then Chaos worked his way back into the fight in the middle rounds.

His right uppercut was finding the mark regularly and even Usman’s iron chin didn’t like it. It wasn’t until the fifth round that Usman really asserted himself once more and made sure the belt stayed with him.

Looks like Kamaru Usman may have sent Colby Covington to the hospital again

Both Usman and UFC boss Dana White paid homage to Covington’s toughness and he earned the champion’s respect after nearly 10 rounds together in the octagon.

But it proves what a dangerous man Usman is. Once labelled as a grappler, coach Trevor Wittman has improved Usman’s hands to the point where he’s one of the most well-rounded fighters in UFC today.

Covington has ended up with a broken jaw and limping on crutches for his efforts, but he will have gained the respect of many fans and his peers tonight for how he conducted himself in defeat and going the distance with the best pound-for-pound fighter in UFC right now.