Colby Covington had a crown within his grasp but a rusted sword in his hand as he lost the fight against Leon Edwards in this past Saturday’s UFC 296 headliner, missing a huge chance to become the Welterweight champion. Fans may have shared Dana White’s view that the battle lacked the fire and excitement expected from a major UFC event.
With Bellator and PFL merging, UFC CEO Dana White believes there will be fewer opportunities for fighters to compete at the top level in MMA, which would be detrimental for the business. However, their joining forces will be a real threat to UFC if such flopped events are offered to MMA fans.
White labels Covington’s performance in UFC 296 as ‘slow and old’
Leon Edwards has previously accused Dana White of being biased towards Coby Covington, but apparently that is not the case. After the UFC 296 press conference, White couldn’t hold himself from giving his actual take on Colby Covington’s performance.
Covington has gotten three title shots so far, and in all three fights, he has faced dominating defeats. This time, the UFC president was questioned about the age and speed of his welterweight fighter.
Dana White explained the age factor and how it affects performance if they are not regularly in touch with this sport, directly indicating Colby’s age and his activeness.
“My take on it is when you’re 35 years old or any age in this sport and you’re like, ‘Yeah, I’m going to wait,’ waiting is never a good idea in this sport. This sport doesn’t wait for anybody.”
Later, the 54-year-old made a direct comment on Colby’s performance, “He looked slow tonight. He got out-wrestled. Leon looked good. Leon looked fast. It looked like [Colby] had trouble dealing with his speed and then getting out-wrestled too. Not to mention Leon absolutely destroyed that leg too.”
“Chaos,” who is known for his second-best wrestling in the welterweight division, was outwrestled by the defending champion, which was one of the biggest setbacks, and his reflexes looked slower as well.
Dana White sounds the alarm on the PFL and Bellator merger
Recently, the news of the PFL and Bellator merger has popped up in the fighting market, and many experts have already given their takes on it. Even Dana White had also shared his take as PFL started to rise when Francis Ngannou got the contract with it.
During one of the MMA Hour interviews recently, founder PFL Donn Davis came forward on what his rival company’s president thought about the future plans of PFL and Bellator.
Davis made the statement on White saying, “Everybody knows Dana well enough that he only dismisses things that worry him. Or else he just doesn’t comment. He didn’t comment on the PFL for four years, because he wasn’t worried.” As per Donn, the UFC president is now concerned about his rival MMA promotion company.
And when the UFC president got to know about the PFL and Bellator merging, he directly told the media, “It will be bad for the sport,” showing concern that upcoming rookie and amateur fighters will have less platform to reach the biggest stage.
