Kamaru Usman Says He's Receiving Thousands of Messages Asking Him to 'Kill' Covington

Fans got a taste of what’s to come when UFC welterweight champion Kamaru Usman and former interim welterweight champion Colby Covington meet later this year after the pair had to be restrained by security on Saturday.

Covington was invited for a post-fight interview night after his dominant win over Robbie Lawler at UFC Newark. In addition to usual hosts Karyn Bryant and former light heavyweight champion Rashad Evans, Usman was present as a special guest. Within moments, Usman and Covington had to be separated by security.

While the UFC has yet to make an official bout announcement, it hasn’t stopped fans sending Usman a wish list on what they want him to do with Covington.

Usman revealed to TMZ Sports that he’s being inundated with requests from fans on social media to ‘kill’ Covington in their fight. (transcript via MMA Junkie)

“I’ve been deleting messages for the past two days from Instagram. I’ve just deleted, deleted, deleted messages – thousands of messages on Instagram – of people saying: ‘Bro, you’ve gotta kill this dude.’ It’s not ‘beat him,’ it’s ‘kill this guy,’ ‘kill him for us,’ ‘I want him done worse than Askren was.’

“People have malicious intent for this guy, myself included, and I’m just blessed to be able to go out there and do it.”

Usman believes fans have not got onto the Covington hype train because of the damage he does to the martial artist community, which he claims is built on respect.

“When you get a guy like Covington, who’s bringing the WWE aspect of entertainment into it, it rubs a lot of people the wrong way,” he said. “People don’t like that because they know the basis of what mixed martial arts was built upon. So that’s the big hang-up of why people hate this (guy) so much.

“And, all around, he’s just a big douche - let’s just be honest … He not only rubs everyone the wrong way, it makes people want to punch you in the face now – and I’m talking women and children, grandmas, not just fighters.”

Usman disagrees that Covington is the self-proclaimed ‘People’s Champ’ especially if people are actively asking the real champion to inflict injury on him when they finally come together.

“He can’t enjoy it,” Usman said. “He’s calling himself ‘The People’s Champ,’ but you can’t be with the people, because the people want to harm you. You have to walk around with security each and everywhere you go because they want to harm you, not because they love you.”