Michael Chiesa called out Colby Covington at UFC on ESPN 20 because he's 'toughest matchup'
ABU DHABI – Michael Chiesa wants Colby Covington next, but not for the reason you might expect.
Chiesa (17-4 MMA, 11-4 UFC), who out-grappled Neil Magny for a unanimous decision win in the UFC on ESPN 20 main event on Wednesday, is 4-0 since moving up to welterweight.
One year removed from his last win, Chiesa still has the same name in mind. But this time, “The Maverick” opened up honestly on why the Covington matchup is so appealing to him – and it has nothing to do with wanting to silence his trash-talking ways.
“He’s the toughest matchup for me,” Chiesa said at the post-fight news conference. “Stylistically, that guy should beat me on any given Sunday. From a physical standout, from a mental warfare standpoint, there’s not a lot of boxes that you can check that favor me in that fight. But how can I say I want to be a champion if I don’t want to fight the best guys? Sometimes the best guys are the ones that are toughest for you stylistically.
“So when I look at the top five, I think that’s the hardest fight for me, so we’ll see what happens. If I come up short, I come up short. But I want to be the best, so I got to fight the best. So that’s the guy, and with me saying I wanna have the year I was supposed to have last year, it seemed fitting to just call out the same guy, so we’ll see how everything shakes out.”
With his win over Magny, Chiesa wants to continue his assent up the 170-pound rankings by taking on former interim champion Covington. Though Covington has been linked to a potential bout with Jorge Masvidal for quite a while, the matchup is yet to materialize.
