Many were quick to criticize Colby Covington’s sub-par performance last Saturday (Dec. 16, 2023) at UFC 296 during his title fight against Leon Edwards, and rightfully so. That’s because “Chaos” wasn’t his usual aggressive self, rarely connected on takedowns and his offense was pretty much non-existent (highlights).
Covington was quick to blame the performance on his extended layoff, all while saying his support of Donald Trump is the reason why the judges didn’t give him the nod he thought he deserved. Now, the outspoken wrestler is revealing the real culprit behind his performance.
During a recent interview on the PBD podcast, Covington revealed that he suffered a broken foot just half a minute into the championship bout.
“I doubled in the strike count, I had over five minutes of control time where he didn’t have one minute. So I feel like I beat him in the fight. I broke my foot 30 seconds into the fight. People don’t know about that yet but the X-rays will be coming out.
“I have the picture on my phone, the exact moment where it (foot) landed on his elbow. You can feel it swelling up. After the end of the first round I was like, ‘that hurts.’ Usually I sit on the stool and I didn’t want to sit down.”
While the short clip didn’t show him in a walking boot, the hosts confirmed that he was wearing one at the time of the interview.
Depending on how extensive of a break he actually suffered will very much delay the former interim title holder’s combat return to action. And that desired bout against Stephen Thompson probably won’t be waiting for him when he does return.
Covington dropped to 2-3 over his last five fights with the loss to Edwards, and will now have a tough road to climb back into title contention One can imagine it will only get steeper for him due to his looming layoff.
This story originally appeared on MMA Mania
