The cut over Colby Covington’s eye at UFC Tampa was so severe that his longtime friend and cornerman, Chael Sonnen, was prepared to stop his fight against Joaquin Buckley if the doctor and the referee did not intervene first.
It was a challenging night for Covington, who found himself battered in the octagon for more than two rounds, with Buckley in control for the majority of the fight. A gash opened early on, worsening with each passing moment. By the time the bout reached the latter part of the third round, Covington was not only bleeding profusely but also had blood streaming into his eye, prompting concern from Sonnen.
“He’s busted open so bad the doctor has to look at it three times,” Sonnen remarked about the fight on his YouTube channel. “Twice he stops the action to let it keep going. The third time he said ‘we can’t go anymore.’ I was going to stop that fight. I already grabbed the towel. When the doctor came in for the third time, and I’m watching that blood, it’s not stopping and it is going into the eye. That’s the only thing you’re really looking for.”
Sonnen further explained, “When we as fight fans, we as tough guys, think the doctor should have stopped it, we’re talking about it doesn’t really matter how bad the cut is from our perspective as long as it’s not going in the eye. If it’s blinding a guy, it doesn’t matter if it’s a little or a lot. If it’s in his eye, and he can no longer see out of that eye, it’s the same thing. It’s the exact same thing.”
After the fight concluded, Covington quickly exited the octagon, barely waiting to hear the result, while Buckley began his celebration.
At the post-fight press conference, UFC CEO Dana White suggested that the fight might have been allowed to continue had it taken place in Nevada instead of Florida.
While this may be White’s viewpoint, Sonnen holds a different opinion and supports the decision to halt the fight. “This was bad,” Sonnen noted regarding the cut. “This was in the eye. I literally stood up so I could see what the doctor was doing. I told Charlie, the No. 2 [coach], I said ‘hand me that towel, I’m stopping this.’ I bring that to you because the referee was taking some criticism. Well, let me be fair here; I saw what they saw.”
Even though the fight ended due to the cut, Sonnen continued to commend Covington’s toughness as he faced a formidable opponent in Buckley, who consistently delivered hard shots during the bout.
Covington struggled to assert much offense outside of a takedown he secured in the second round, which ultimately didn’t offer him a significant advantage since Buckley remained patient, eventually finding his way back to his feet.
Nonetheless, Sonnen expressed a desire for the fight’s dynamics to have unfolded differently, considering Covington’s conditioning and his ability to maintain a pace that most fighters cannot handle. “I think we were down both rounds going into the third,” Sonnen commented. “But then I was told that one of the judges had it 1-1. I’m not here to relive that; I just felt that the tide was turning. Buckley was a real sport about that. He said ‘hey, I was fading a little bit’ and it’s important that Buckley understands that.”
“Because Buckley did nothing wrong. He just has to learn how to extend. If you’re going to be fighting like this, you do such a good job with the media; he’s going to be headlining events. So that means he’s going to be in the five-round club, and it’s good for Buckley to know where that energy goes.”
According to the scorecards released after the fight, Covington was down 20-18 across the board, and the third round began in a manner similar to the previous two rounds.
Regardless of the outcome, Sonnen applauded Covington for showing remarkable heart throughout the fight, particularly his resilience in absorbing Buckley’s hardest punches without ever yielding.
“There was nowhere Colby even winced,” Sonnen stated. “There was nowhere that he flinched. There was never a time he stepped backwards. There was not a time he went down. I offer you that because there was a time that he went down, but it wasn’t from a punch. There was a punch as he slipped as he went down.”
Sonnen concluded, “When you look at the grit-meter, this was one of Colby’s best fights. When you look at the digging deep, this does not replace the fight with Kamaru Usman, but godd*mn, it’s right there. When you look at grit, you look at the shots that he took, you look at the damage that they did—he did not care.”
Source link
