Covington says ‘fraud’ Tyron Woodley should ‘vacate’ title

Colby Covington doesn’t think Tyron Woodley is interested in defending his welterweight title against him.

If all things go according to plan at UFC 225, and Colby Covington beats Rafael dos Anjos to win the interim welterweight title in the co-main event, ‘Chaos’ will be booked to fight reigning champion Tyron Woodley in a title unification bout later in the year.

Covington, however, isn’t confident Woodley wants to defend his belt and says that, if that’s the case, ‘T-Wood’ should relinquish the title and ‘run to Hollywood’.

“To be honest I’m not that confident about it. He’s been running from me from the gate. We were supposed to fight December last year. He said he could fight Nate Diaz, but all of a sudden when he got presented me he got hurt again,” Covington said during a recent media call to promote his title fight with ‘RDA’, per Sherdog’s Tristen Critchfield. “I don’t know, he’s been acting, he’s on TMZ. He needs to come back and fight but he’s probably gonna run to Hollywood. He needs to vacate the belt for me.”

Woodley, 36, has been nursing a shoulder injury since his title defense against Demian Maia at UFC 214, where he beat the Brazilian via unanimous decision in the main event. ‘The Chosen One’ hopes to return to action in the coming weeks.

Covington has accused Woodley of faking his injury to avoid defending his title and called the Roufusport product a ‘fraud’ earlier this week.

“To be honest, I don’t think so,” Covington said when asked if Woodley is even interested in fighting anymore. “The guy he comes out in the media and will say something on his social media to make headlines. The guy doesn’t want to fight. He’s a fake, he’s a fraud.…He doesn’t want to fight anymore.”

The way Covington sees it, his interim title bout with dos Anjos should be for the ‘undisputed’ belt instead, with the winner crowned official welterweight champion.

“This is the undisputed title,” he said. “I don’t know what you keep saying about the interim title, everybody knows this is the undisputed belt. You don’t get any bigger fights in the UFC, in the division, than you have right now.”

UFC 225: Whittaker vs. Romero 2 takes place this Saturday, June 9 at the United Center in Chicago, Illinois.