Kamaru Usman: People Hate Colby Covington Because of WWE Aspect He Brings to MMA

Even after they meet in the Octagon as expected later this year, Kamaru Usman and Colby Covington will likely never be the best of friends.

The two welterweight rivals’ most recent confrontation occurred on the set of ESPN’s post-fight show following UFC on ESPN 5 in Newark, N.J., this past Saturday. Usman and Covington jawed at one another while surrounded by security, perhaps setting the stage for a championship clash later this year. Covington returned from more than a year absence to win his seventh straight contest in the main event, taking a dominant decision over Robbie Lawler.

According to Usman, it’s Covington’s insistence on playing the role of a sports entertainment villain that’s most irritating.

“When you get a guy like Covington who’s bringing the WWE aspect of entertainment into it, it rubs a lot of people the wrong way,” Usman told TMZ Sports. “And people don’t like that because they know the basis of what mixed martial arts was built upon. So that’s the big hangup of why people hate this so much.

“And all around he’s just a big douche. Let’s just be honest.”

While Usman isn’t amused by Covington’s persona, he claims that his feud with “Chaos” is 100 percent genuine.

“That’s real. that’s absolutely real,” he said. “That’s the one thing I can tell you.”

Usman adds that he’s been the recipient of numerous requests to take care of Covington when they square off in the Octagon. A potential target date of Nov. 2 at Madison Square Garden has been mentioned for their bout, but nothing is official as of yet.

“I’ve been deleting messages for the past two days from Instagram,” Usman said. “I have thousands of messages from people on Instagram saying, ‘Bro you’ve got to kill this dude.’ People have malicious intent for this guy, myself included. I’m just blessed to be in a position to go out and actually do it.”