The UFC has started off the new year in great fashion as former champions regained what was their's as Jon Jones successfully won his Light-heavyweight Championship for the 3rd time after dominating Alexander Gustaffson. The year also started with a brand new double champ as Amanda Nunes has become the first openly gay woman to not only hold the woman's UFC Bantamweight title, but is now a double champ after melting Cris Cyborg in less than 60 seconds to become the woman's UFC Featherweight Champion as she holds two crowns as she solidified herself as the greatest Woman fighter in Mix Martial Arts history.
The UFC has continued to bless the world fight announcement after fight announcement as Jon Jones will get a quick turn around fight against Anthony Smith in March at UFC 235 for his first title defense since winning his belt back. Rose Namajunas will return to competition since successfully defending her title against former champion Joanna Jedrzejczyk in their rematch with Rose taking on the dominant force that is Jessica Andrade in May. But there was one fight announcement that made everybody scratch their heads with confusion.
It was announced that at UFC 235 the co-main event will be Kamaru Usman taking on Tyron Woodley for Tyron's UFC Welterweight Championship. Many thought when it would be announced that Tyron Woodley is defending his title it would be against the UFC Interim Champion Colby Covington and that is not the case. It seemed like it would be an absolute no brainer to book Covington versus Woodley for the title at the height of the drama between the two fighters.
There is a genuine dislike and hatred between the 2 as for the past couple of months they continued to go back and forth with one another. Covington has called out Tyrone in his last few victories as he has his eye on becoming the New UFC Welterweight Champion and "making the division great again" as Colby would put it. The Champ "The Chosen One" Tyron Woodley has gone as far as to say he wants to hurt Covington so bad he ends his career.
While Dana White has said essentially that Colby wouldn't take the fight because he wasn't ready, Colby has said otherwise. On Ariel Helwani's show, Colby "Chaos" Covington was the guest recently and spoke on how he didn't receive the title shot that was rightfully his. To the fans, it is not completely clear as to who is telling the truth and who isn't between Covington and Dana White. The fight seemed like it was ready to go but a contract wasn't signed by yet the way Colby and the champ Tyron were verbally attacking each other.
"Choas" Covington even suggested that the UFC should release him and dared Dana to do so. At this point, it seems as if the closest Colby will get to a title shot is if something happens to Kamaru Usman leading up to UFC 235.
