Kamaru Usman Praises Marc Goddard For Protecting Colby Covington From “Yourself”

Colby Covington has resurfaced recently and has been making the media rounds, following his crushing loss to Kamaru Usman in December. As he did immediately after the bout, “Chaos” is still claiming that referee Marc Goddard blew it in stopping the fight when he did.

Usman responds to Covington

Since Covington was defeated by Usman in round five of their epic, thrilling bout at UFC 245, the controversial fighter has blamed Goddard for the defeat. According to Covington, Goddard gave breaks to Usman for strikes that were not in fact fouls. Covington’s also claimed the fight should not have been stopped when it was and that Goddard ignored strikes to the back of his head.

Well, more recently Usman was asked to comment on Covington’s protests while speaking to MMA Fighting. Here’s some of what the welterweight champ had to say.

“That’s the thing about me being rational and trying to see it from all sides, absolutely [it was a good stoppage],” Usman said. “Because taking myself out of it as the fighter that won and also taking myself out of it looking at it from Colby’s perspective but looking at it from the referee’s perspective. I hit him with some big, big shots in there.

“Hitting him with the right hand that hurt him. That clearly hurt him. Hitting him with the left hand that hurt him. Hitting him with a series of punches against the cage that definitely hurt him and then the big right hand that just sat him down really bad. So he’s hurt really bad, he got up, I let him up trying to fight back up and then hit him with another shot that just dropped him. For a referee looking at all of that, at the end of the day, you’re sprawled out and I’m beating on the side of your head, the referee’s got to protect you from yourself sometimes.”

“You can say it’s controversial but you have to see the referee just saw you take all those big shots in a row,” Usman said. “He has to be able to step in to protect you from yourself so you can live to fight another day.”

Following the bout there didn’t seem to be widespread debate about the stoppage. Especially since the round would have almost certainly been awarded to Usman, who floored Covington twice in the final frame.

Usman – Covington II?

All that aside, Covington has also been pushing for a rematch with Usman, who is expected to fight Jorge Masvidal this summer. When asked about the possibility of fighting his rival again, Usman said this:

“I hope so,” Usman said. “Because that was a fun fight. Not just myself but I think the media, the fans, everybody believed that was a fun fight.”

It will be really interesting to see if that happens. By all indications right now, however, Covington is going to need to return to the win column before another shot at the belt gets tabled.