Stephen Thompson Predicts Edwards Will Retain Title Against Covington at UFC 296

Stephen Thompson doesn’t see a clear path to victory for Colby Covington in his upcoming welterweight title challenge against Leon Edwards.

Covington (17-3) is scheduled to headline UFC 296 on Saturday opposite the champion at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Thompson (17-6) recently explained why he believes “Rocky” (21-3) will successfully retain his strap against Covington.

This is Covington’s third and probably last opportunity to become undisputed champ, having come up short against former ruler Kamaru Usman via technical knockout in 2019 and then a unanimous decision in 2021. Meanwhile, Edwards dethroned Usman with a last-minute comeback upset in August 2022 before convincingly defending his strap via a decision in a rematch this past March.

Looking at both of their performances against Usman, Thompson believes Edwards will have a size advantage over Covington. He further noted that while “Chaos” struggled to wrestle Usman on both occasions, Edwards took “The Nigerian Nightmare” down in the first outing and stuffed his grappling game in the rematch.

While Covington’s best skillset is arguably his relentless pace, “Wonderboy” believes it could prove to be dangerous against someone like Edwards, who has proven knockout power for 25 minutes.

“I like Leon. Colby Covington, we saw what happened with Colby Covington and Usman. Of course, Colby Covington is not coming off of a severe knockout from this guy, but if you look back at the fight, I feel like Leon Edwards is the bigger welterweight,” The 40-year-old said on The MMA Hour. “I feel like the fight is going to stay standing. Even Usman couldn’t hold him down, he got right back up. And the first fight, Leon took him down, something that Colby couldn’t do. Something Colby had much difficulty doing [against Usman],”

“Leon is definitely the better striker. The only thing that I think Colby has is the cardio. If he stays in his face and stays relentless, but that’s very dangerous with somebody like Leon because he can throw. [Edwards] is very dangerous from the very beginning all the way to the very end of that fight as we saw the very first [title fight with Usman]. He’s just as dangerous as he is in the first as he is in the first round and that’s scary… I think he’s going to keep the fight standing, I think he’s going to win the fight standing up. He’s definitely the better striker.”

Thompson will also appear on the UFC 296 card opposite surging Kazakh standout Shavkat Rakhmonov (17-0), who has finished all of his 17 career outings so far. Thompson is coming off a TKO win over Kevin Holland last December, that saw him bounce back from consecutive decision losses against ace grapplers Gilbert Burns and Belal Muhammad.