Dana White: Colby Covington to Get Next Welterweight Title Shot Against Kamaru Usman

Normally, Dana White claims that he doesn’t like to engage in matchmaking right after an event.

In the case of the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s welterweight division, however, there is an easily identifiable No. 1 contender for newly-crowned champion Kamaru Usman. Shortly after Usman dispatched Tyron Woodley in a surprisingly dominant five-round verdict in the UFC 235 co-headliner, the UFC president confirmed that Colby Covington would be next for “The Nigerian Nightmare.”

Covington, the former interim champion, was very visible from his cageside seat on Saturday night at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Multiple members of the media said that White went to speak to Covington near the end of Usman’s victory.

“There was a lot of ruckus going on over there in his area,” White said at Saturday’s post-fight press conference. “He almost got into it with mama Woodley at one point and everything else. That was like the third time I’d gone over to him that night.

“So I just told him, ‘Listen, you’re going to get this title shot. Don’t f—k this up. Just relax. You and all your guys relax. If anything goes down, let our people handle it, and we’re going to take you in the back in a little while here and do some interviews.’ That’s all I said to him.”

Covington claimed interim gold with a five-round decision over Rafael dos Anjos at UFC 225, his sixth consecutive victory within the promotion. However, when “Chaos” was unable to face Woodley last fall, he was stripped of the belt.

Meanwhile, Usman racked up a nine-fight winning streak that including a dominant win over dos Anjos to claim the No. 1 contender’s spot. White believes Usman justified his decision with his performance at UFC 235. Still, the UFC boss didn’t expect Usman to control the fight the way he did.

“You guys were there at the [pre-fight] press conference. Woodley said, ‘What are you going to do to me? I do everything better than you do.’ I told you guys after the RDA fight, I respect RDA a lot and I use him as a gauge for guys when they’re coming up, and he [Usman] looked so good in that RDA fight. I knew after Colby turned down that fight, that I wanted to do the fight with Usman,” White said.

“What I loved about this fight [at UFC 235] and what I thought was going to make it a great fight is that I knew Usman would go after him. Normally, Woodley’s so fast with his hands and he’s such a good wrestler, that most guys can’t do both with him. Usman could do both. Usman could wrestle with him, but I didn’t expect Usman to go in and absolutely dominate him the entire time wherever he wanted to go. No, I didn’t see that coming.”