Just this week, UFC President Dana White came out and said a title fight featuring Kamaru Usman may be next for the welterweight division. While not everything White says can be taken as fact, the statement definitely comes at the expense of former (current?) interim champion Colby Covington. 

According to Covington, this is especially bad considering the number of times he’s been offered the Woodley fight.

Listen to the full interview here (starts at 2:00)

“He said he was healthy after his number-one contender fight against the doughboy [Darren Till] and was ready to go for November,” Covington said of the first time it was offered to him. “I don’t know, I guess negotiations went bad on his side and all of a sudden he has a hurt thumb and can’t fight in November.”

From there, he was offered a fight in the new year, but that too — as well as the card itself — had to be scrapped due to Woodley.

“They were trying to make the fight for Jan. 23 in Anaheim, and then all of a sudden, his thumb is too hurt and he can’t fight in Anaheim,” Covington said. “They had to cancel the whole show altogether because he couldn’t come out of hiding.”

Although there doesn’t seem to be an obvious reason why a champion like Woodley would fake injuries, according to Covington, the answer comes from what happened when the two trained together at American Top Team. 

“Woodley has been faking so many injuries,” Covington claims. “He doesn’t want to fight me, man. Deep down inside — he can say whatever he wants on the outside — but we trained behind closed doors for many years and he knows what happened.”

According to Covington, the different in those training sessions was clear and it came down to one fundamental difference in their abilities. 

“It was always the same thing,” he said. “I put on a pace that first round that he couldn’t respond to.... His body shut down… Those muscles need a lot of oxygen to feed those big muscles.”

You are a bitch! You were suppose to fight me in Sept and let Till nearly get killed. You are the easy way out. And talked all that shit and bitching out. Quit trying to call shots I’m the king. Go kiss the boss’ ass so I can kick your ass and retired the non sense. https://t.co/abId2BQ13n

— Tyron T-Wood Woodley (@TWooodley) December 26, 2018

From there, he said every subsequent round was the easiest round he ever dealt with. 

“Second round he gives up, he quits, he mentally checks out,” Covington said. “He’s too tired and fatigues with his big muscles.”

And while he says Woodley can’t handle his pace, he knows that his cardio would continue to hold up due to some... unconventional... stamina exercises. 

“I don’t get tired. I have porn star cardio,” Covington said. “All my hours in the bedroom with my different chicks, I’ve built up such a high cardio that no one can hang with me anymore.”

While we may have to wait a little longer to see if that “porn star cardio” will play into the long anticipated showdown, Covington is keeping his options open. 

“I’ve been approached two or three times in the last couple months for the fight with him, but nothing is coming,” Covington said. “So we’ll have to see what’s next. There’s been some rumblings of some other things, and we’ll just see what happens.”

Until whatever it is that does happen, Covington has some clarification on whether or not to consider him a champion for the confused fans. 

“As far as I’m concerned, I’m still the real world champion,” he stated. “You can call me the people’s champion, you can call me America’s champion.”