UFC 245: Usman vs. Covington – A Fight to Remember!

The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) closed its 2019 pay-per-view calendar with the extraordinary UFC 245 fight card held in Las Vegas, Nevada! All three title fights lived up to expectations with Amanda Nunes (19-4) dominating Germanie De Randamie (9-4) to properly defend the Bantamweight title and Alexander Volkanovski (21-1) putting on a show against Max Holloway (21-5) to become a new Featherweight King. However, the highly anticipated main event matchup between the Kamaru Usman (15-1) and Colby Covington (15-2) definitely went higher than expectations. With both fighters leaving it all inside the Octagon, the fight will go down into the history books as one of the greatest Welterweight fights of all time! Considering the massive mutual animosity and trash talk leading up to a fight, we didn’t expect things being any different!

Usman and Covington were on a collision course for many years while climbing through the Welterweight rankings. However, the Nigeran was the first one to crown himself with the UFC gold by defeating Tyron Woodley at UFC 235. Shortly after, Covington followed with the dominant performance over Robbie Lawler at UFC on ESPN 5, and the battle between the two fierce rivals was inevitable. As much as their personalities are different from Covington being a villain and Usman playing a good guy, they both share similar career paths and fighting styles. To support our claim, let’s take a look at the facts below:

• Both fighters have the same 15-1 official MMA record
• They both hold the victories over Demian Maia and Rafael Dos Anjos
• They have defeated the fighters who have inflicted losses on their counterparts!

Identical fighting styles

With the cage doors closed, their fighting styles are virtually identical. Both fighters are traditionally coming from the elite NCAA wrestling background and have picked up solid boxing and kickboxing skills through the years. However, what brined them the biggest successes are the incredibly big gas tanks and the ability to overwhelm the opposition by maintaining a consistent pace.

If we dig a bit further, the distinct differences in their styles begin to appear. While Usman typically relies on carefully picking his shots and landing with vicious power, Covington prefers more volume and breaking the opponent with the relentless striking. As far as wrestling is concerned, they’re both decorated grapplers with Usman holding a slight advantage simply because of a more muscular physique. Apart from the slight differences in height and reach, both fighters are matched almost perfectly.

After many years of trash talk, scuffles in hotel halls and social media wars, the two finally met at UFC 245 as the leading pair of this memorable event.

A pure escalation of violence!

With the referee Marc Goddard closely observing the action, both fighters started blasting each other from the opening seconds. The most fascinating thing is they’ve abandoned their wrestling backgrounds and decided to challenge each other in a pure boxing match! Covington was able to win early exchanges by displaying great head movement and footwork which enabled him to attack from various angles and catch Usman with nasty hooks! Furthermore, he started increasing volume and feeling more comfortable. However, the champion regrouped himself and got more focused on landing hard body shots which apparently started to hurt Covington. Basically, they’ve both stood in the center, blasting each other and showing incredible toughness!

As the fierce fight progressed, it became obvious that they both share similar game plans as well! With Usman finding his range and setting up his timing, Colby started to back off and have a hard time adequately defending the combos. Apart from missing a lot of shots, Colby was able to crack the Nigerian with a couple of more punches over the top! However, Usman maintained his composure, picked his shots well and started to get ahead on the judges’ scorecards. The breaking point came at the end of the third round when Covington addressed his coaches that his jaw got broken! Like a true warrior, he showed no signs of trouble and continued to demonstrate great skills and a big heart. However, the fourth round saw both fighters slowing down and Usman winning the round with higher output. Coming into the fifth, many people had it 2-2! Although Covington enjoyed early success during the exchanges, Usman would ultimately find his number on the feet and put him on his butt with the piston right hand! He would follow with hard ground and pound shots and close the show with a little less than a minute left!

Tomislav Zivanovic by Bushu

Picture: Official website Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC)