Jon Anik was shocked by the anger that grew when Colby Covington talked about Leon Edwards’s dead father that UFC 296.
Covington (17-4 MMA, 12-4 UFC) got a lot of flak for the things he did leading up to UFC 296. During the prior to the event news conference, he talked about Leon Edwards’ killed father, which upset a lot of people.
Covington’s antics have hurt Anik, who is the lead play-by-play announcer for the UFC. In a past talk with MMA Fighting, Covington told Anik, “I don’t want the kids to grow up without a dad,” as a threat because Anik was backing top contender Belal Muhammad.
Anik said on his show “Anik & Florian” that Colby Covington always crosses the line. “So I’ll be honest—and I know this represents a minority view—I was a little surprised by how angry most people were.”
I can see why Leon Edwards along with his family are upset. Leon is still upset about the death of his father, even though Leon’s dad wasn’t always a good guy or a loving dad.
“However, he’s still feeling that way after many years.” He cried behind the scenes. He said that my kids would all end up without a father, but the UFC didn’t get angry about it at all.
I didn’t hear any boos. That being said, it looks like there is some bias in the anger toward Colby Covington.
After Covington’s words, Edwards had to keep his cool, but he fought without showing any emotion and beat him by a simple majority at T-Mobile Arena last Saturday to keep his title.
In the main event of UFC 296 on Saturday at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, welterweight king Edwards (21-3 MMA, 13-2 UFC) defends his world title against Colby Covington (17-3 MMA, 12-3 UFC). After the early rounds on ESPN2 and ESPN+, the big event airs on pay-per-view.
Muhammad (23-3 MMA, 14-3 UFC), who has won all 10 of his fights but one (a no contest against Edwards in March 2021). will be there as a backup.
Edwards says Muhammad could be next, but he doesn’t promise it. Muhammad has been chomping up a bit for his title shot.
“Maybe,” Edwards told MMA Junkie alongside other reporters at the UFC 296 media day on Wednesday. “A lot of guys have been back-ups for other cards but didn’t end up fighting over the world title.”
“Let’s say one of the other guys has a crazy, great performance on Saturday night. The UFC might skip Belal or put them in instead.” Who knows? It doesn’t matter who comes first because you have to fight them all.
Edwards is sure that he can beat Muhammad in a fight. In their first fight, Muhammad got poked in the eye badly, which stopped him from continuing in the first few seconds of Round 2.
There were three judges, and Edwards won Round 1. In that round, he hit Muhammad alongside a head kick and won. That they fought for just over five minutes makes him think that’s how the fight would have gone.
It’s been a while since Colby Covington fought, but he’s known for having a huge tank and beating a number of the greatest welterweights ever.
Leon Edwards wasn’t going to be easy on the fight. After Covington talked about “Rocky’s father” at the press meeting, there is still no bad blood between the two.
At the start of the fight, the winner hit with a powerful left hand. It wasn’t possible for Colby Covington to get down for the first time in the fight.
During the first two rounds, he didn’t try to use his wrestling skills very much. Instead, he chose to strike Leon Edwards, whose is known for being very good at that.
In the fourth round, “Chaos” tried to take down again but almost got trapped in a chokehold. He tried to take Leon Edwards down again, but Edwards fought back very well.
The winner had most of the control of the fight and stopped Chaos’s grappling attempts many times.
In the last round, Leon Edwards kept trying to hit a head kick, which made it clear that he wanted to knock out his opponent. It wasn’t easy for Colby Covington to give up, though.
He got taken down again, but Edwards, who was trying for a submission win, caught him off guard.
‘Rocky’ won UFC 296 by majority decision in the end. After that, he talked about how Covington’s rude words made him feel before the fight.