Coach: Colby Covington Will Knock Out Leon Edwards

The coach of upcoming Ultimate Fighting Championship title challenger Colby Covington expects his fighter will hold the belt this year.

At the conclusion of UFC 286 in March, Leon Edwards prevailed in the rubber match against rival Kamaru Usman to claim the 170-pound title once and for all. In uncharacteristic fashion, UFC head Dana White stated unequivocally that Covington would receive the next crack at gold during the post-fight press conference. Even with multiple competitors on lengthy win streaks, and a pivotal bout between Gilbert Burns and Jorge Masvidal coming up, White was certain that Covington will be the next challenger. Earlier this week, the coaches of “Chaos” at MMA Masters in Florida spoke to Sherdog, where they explained what he has been doing lately and what they believe is in store for him.

“He had to stay [off] a long time recovering from the cowardice Masvidal did to him,” coach Daniel Valverde revealed, “but since he returned to the academy about four months ago, Colby was getting ready to face [Khamzat] Chimaev. He was pretty sure that this was the fight [the] UFC wanted, but looks like [the] UFC didn’t believe that [Chimaev] could reach welterweight and decided to [move] Chimaev up [to middleweight]. But it’s not true that Colby didn’t accept to fight him. It was a UFC decision.”

Covington and his team expect that the welterweight championship match will take place on July 8 at UFC 290, but that has not been confirmed at this time. When the fight inevitably comes, Covington’s head coach, Cesar Carneiro, believes that his fighter is a terrible style matchup for the British champion.

“Colby is a cardio machine,” Carneiro explained. “Today, he did more than 10 rounds in the academy, keeping the same pressure [the whole time]. From what I saw of Edwards’ fights against Nate Diaz and Usman, I don’t think he is ready to face Colby’s pressure. My bet is [Covington by] TKO in the third round.”

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