By the time Leon Edwards had reached his final faceoff with Colby Covington, he was “fuming and shaking” from everything the three-time welterweight title challenger had said.
Nothing was more disturbing than Covington’s insults directed at his father, who was murdered when he was growing up. But after a talk with his mom and his team, he composed himself and got his head straight.
“F*** this guy, basically,” said Edwards at the post-UFC 296 press conference after routing Covington on the scorecards with unanimous 49-46 scores. “Focus on yourself. This is what he wants. He wants you to come out there and try to swing and take you down. What he said was f***** up, but … let’s go out and do your job.”
That meant being ready for the onslaught that Edwards expected when the opening bell rang. Covington is a well-known pressure fighter in addition to his wrestling prowess, so he expected a flurry of punches and a level change. He was shocked when Covington not only didn’t come out swinging, but backpedaled.
“I came out orthodox for the first round, and I was waiting for him to charge forward, like he normally does, but I feel like the pressure got to him,” Edwards said. “The switching of the stances, my range, it all just threw him off. He just kind of went into a little shell, and he didn’t come out of it.”
Over five rounds, Covington threw about half the strikes he did in his previous fight, a grudge match with ex-training partner Jorge Masvidal that he won by unanimous decision. Edwards also threw about half the total attacks as his previous bout, a unanimous decision over Kamaru Usman in their trilogy.
As a result, Saturday’s main event was a lot less action-packed than anyone, Edwards included, expected.
“It definitely wasn’t one of my best performances,” he said. “I thought it would be a way more active fight. He just went on his back foot straight away, and I thought, ‘What’s this guy doing?’ Talking all that s*** that he did this week, I thought he would come out and do more. But I feel like he’s done it before. He gasses the fight up, and then he just doesn’t show up.”
Covington’s pre-fight trash talk was roundly criticized by fellow fighters. The brash welterweight apologized for none of it, but Edwards said there should be lines for that sort of thing in the future.
“I feel like kids are out of it,” he said. “I feel like murdered parents should definitely be out of it. I don’t get how you use that as a way to sell a fight or entertainment, and I think that put him in his shell. I think my reaction to it kind of threw him off a bit. The fans turned against him and media was like, ‘What are you doing?’
“But he’s a coward, and he’ll always been a coward. Even when he lost the fight, he kept making excuses that, ‘Oh, I won the fight.’ When Usman knocked him out and broke his jaw, he’s like, ‘Oh, it’s [referee] Marc [Goddard’s] fault.’ It’s always someone else’s fault when he loses.”
Edwards had a potential third opponent in the cage in his emotions when he faced Covington. Thanks to some mental jiu-jitsu, he managed to get through it and get a victory over a true rival.
“It was definitely one of the most emotional fights I’ve ever had to do, as far as the comments that he made. But like I said, I’ve got a great support system around me, and they got me in the right space to be as an athlete. Because in my mind and my body, I wanted to go out and have a war with him, but when I talked to my coaches and my mom, shut it all off, 25 minutes, and afterward you can deal with the emotions.”
This story originally appeared on MMA fighting