Colby Covington Trashes Leon Edwards UFC Title: 'He Didn’t Earn It the Hard Way Like I Did'

"I had to go the unconventional way because the straight-ahead way wasn’t available."

Colby Covington argues that Leon Edwards did not earn or deserve his shot at the UFC welterweight title. "Chaos" is set to face "Rocky" in the main event of UFC 296 on December 16, and is starting to get the ball rolling.

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Although both Covington and Edwards have had unconventional routes to title contention, it's Covington that believes he's taken the high road:

“He just cried, ‘I deserve this, I deserve that’, instead of just going out there and working for it or earning it like I did," Covington told UFC.com. "I had to earn it the hard way. 

"No one gave me this spot to fight for the undisputed title. I had to earn it. I had to go the unconventional way because the straight-ahead way wasn’t available. He didn’t earn it the hard way like I did, and December 16th he’s going to find out that he’s going to get broken by the American dream.”

Covington and Edwards have seemingly developed in parallel to each other. Both fighters have eight fights in the welterweight top-15, and they share two ranked welterweight opponents. Notably, both fighters suffered defeats against Kamaru Usman, although Edwards later avenged his loss twice.

Covington's Opponent + their rank	Win/Loss	Edwards' Opponent + their rank	Win/Loss
Jorge Masvidal (#6)	Win	Kamaru Usman (#1)	Win
Kamaru Usman (Champ)	Loss	Kamaru Usman (Champ)	Win
Tyron Woodley (#5)	Win	Nate Diaz (Unranked)	Win
Kamaru Usman (Champ)	Loss	Belal Muhammad (#13)	No Contest
Robbie Lawler (#11)	Win	Rafael Dos Anjos (#4)	Win
Rafael Dos Anjos (#1)	Win	Gunnar Nelson (#13)	Win
Demian Maia (#3)	Win	Donald Cerrone (#11)	Win
Dong Hyun Kim (#7)	Win	Peter Sobotta (unranked)	Win

It's also worth noting that Covington has zero wins and two losses against currently ranked welterweight fighters. On the other hand, Edwards has three wins, including two against Usman and one against Vicente Luque.

The combined record of Covington's ranked opponents is 166-74-1, and it includes two bouts against an active champion at the time (Usman), and three bouts against former champions (RDA, Lawler, Woodley). 

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The combined record of Edwards' ranked opponents is 150-48-1 (counting Usman twice), and it includes one bout against an active champion (Usman), and two bouts against former champions (Usman, RDA).

So despite Covington's comments on Edward's deservedness, their records have a lot more in common than it seems.

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