Colby Covington may move to middleweight, doesn't see Sean Strickland as threat
01/06/2025 09:45 AM
Former interim welterweight champion Colby Covington suffered back-to-back losses for the first time in his 13-year mixed martial arts career at UFC on ESPN 63 on Dec. 14. "Chaos" has lost three of his last four fights and is considering moving up the the middleweight division.
"Honestly, 185 is intriguing. I think it would be kind of cool to go up there with the narrative like, oh, this guy's a small 170. He's going to go up to 85 and take on an even bigger challenge," Covington told Submission Radio. "There is a possibility. I'm always looking for the biggest and best fights. So we'll see. I'm not I'm not sure. We'll see what's on the table, who's hot at the time. And you know, I'm just always looking for the biggest and best fights. So it doesn't matter. Any weight class."
If he were to decide to officially make the move to the 185-pound weight class, Covington would take the time to bulk up. While he'd like to add some muscle and power, Covington also wants to maintain a speed advantage over bigger fighters.
"I think I would go into like a heavy lifting program because I've always been about cardio and like high interval training, you know, hit training. I think I would take a little like couple months, like two, three, four months to just really get on a good weight regimen to put muscle on it," Covington said. "You want to get power and you want to be strong at that weight class. So, I don't think it would be - I know those guys are a lot slower.
"That's why guys that leave welterweight and they go to middleweight have so much success. You know, those guys like Whittaker became champion, a guy like Sean Strickland who became a champion," Covington continued. "They leave this welterweight where these guys are fast. They're good cardio. These are the best athletes on the planet in this weight class. So they go up and they have so much success at middleweight because the middleweights are unathletic. They're slow. So there is something to be said with that. What type of training you would do? I would definitely want to put on some muscle, but I also want to be efficient with the speed and making sure I'm really quick twitched, ready to pounce on these guys."
Colby Covington: 'I don't see any threats out of Sean Strickland'
Covington said that he hasn't really thought about potential opponents in the middleweight division but would entertain a matchup against former titleholder Sean Strickland.
"The Sean Strickland fight is always interesting. He's had his things to say about me in the past I don't think he's anything special. He's got a jab, he's got a front kick. But besides that, you shut those those weapons down and he's very limited. He's a cardio fighter. He's just a cardio kickboxer, essentially. I don't see any threats out of Sean Strickland. And it's an entertaining fight that I might entertain in the future."
