Daniel Cormier defends Colby Covington's decision to turn down Leon Edwards fight
Daniel Cormier has defended Colby Covington's refusal of taking a fight against Leon Edwards on short notice. The former UFC Heavyweight champion weighed in his thoughts on why Chaos turning down a fight against Edwards was the best decision by the No.1 ranked Welterweight fighter.
In the recent edition of the DC & Helwani show, Cormier disagreed with his co-host Ariel Helwani, stating that he feels Colby Covington didn't botch by taking the fight against Leon Edwards.
The former UFC double champion thinks that the way Colby Covington fights, he would've needed a longer to prepare for a matchup against Edwards for March 13th.
"I don't know if he botched it in the sense that he didn't have a lot of time. It's not like he had a full camp to prepare and Ariel, you can only talk about just the match-up to a certain degree. You got to take it to all the different aspects, one, Colby Covington because of the way that he fights, the output, and the effort that he fights with, you cannot gain that in two weeks. The way that he fights, he needs time to get in like great shape." said Daniel Cormier.
Following the withdrawal of Khamzat Chimaev from the March 13th main event, Colby Covington was asked to potentially step in as a replacement for Borz against Leon Edwards. Chaos rejected the offer and told Submission Radio that he wasn't interested in doing "charity" work for the No.3 ranked UFC welterweight.
Eventually, UFC booked Belal Muhammad as Leon Edwards' new opponent for his return fight in two years. The former is fresh off his win at UFC 258 and will be presented with the opportunity to compete in the biggest fight of his career.
Where does this leave Colby Covington?
With Colby Covington rejecting the fight against Leon Edwards, it remains to be seen what plans UFC will come up with for the former Interim Welterweight Champion.
Gilbert Burns has been calling out Covington following the former's loss to Kamaru Usman. Whereas, Colby himself has been vouching for a fight against his former best friend Jorge Masvidal.