Dana White Says Covington Turned Down Fights With Usman & Woodley

[Kemo]

UFC president Dana White claims that a showdown with Kamaru Usman wasn’t the only bout Colby Covington was offered.

White addressed the road leading up to booking Nate Diaz vs. Jorge Masvidal in the main event of UFC 244 on Nov. 2. Initially, Usman was scheduled to defend his UFC welterweight title against Covington. Negotiations fell apart with “Chaos.”

During a UFC 244 press conference, White told reporter Phoenix Carnevale that Covington turned down the bout with Usman and even refused to fight Tyron Woodley when offered.

“Colby Covington can say whatever he wants. We make fights for a living, that’s what we do. We go after guys and say, ‘This is next, this is the date, do you want the fight?’ And obviously, he wanted more money to fight Usman. We went back and forth. This is the second time he’s done it. He had a [title] fight in Dallas [last year], too. So, we said if you don’t want to fight Usman, then we’ll give you Tyron Woodley. He turned down Tyron Woodley, too. You either want to fight or you don’t. When Colby Covington wants to fight, he’ll let us know.”

During a recent appearance on BJPENN Radio, Covington said the UFC does “slave negotiations.”

“That’s how UFC does business, they do the bully tactics,” he said. “They do the slave labor negotiations. It’s sick man. They don’t want to pay any of the fighters because they want everybody to be poor, so they keep back coming back and fighting all the time, and fighting six times a year.”

[Will]

Covington has a contract. He is choosing not to honor the terms. I'm all for these guys getting paid more money but,at the end of the day, if you put your name on a deal than its your responsibility to do what you said you would do.