Quote: Kamaru Usman vs. Colby Covington Stoppage Was ‘Pretty Bad’
Former UFC welterweight champion Matt Serra believes the stoppage that saw Kamaru Usman defeat Colby Covington was a bad one.
Usman defeated Covington via fifth-round TKO after a back-and-forth war in their welterweight title fight at UFC 245 earlier this month. There was some controversy, however, as some felt referee Marc Goddard stopped the action too soon as Usman was attempting to finish Covington on the ground with less than a minute remaining.
Serra is one of them as he felt it was a “premature” stoppage given how Covington was trying to defend himself:
“I felt that was definitely a little premature,” Serra said on the UFC Unfiltered podcast (via BJ Penn). “F*ck, the guy’s fighting almost 10 minutes with a broken jaw. He went down, he’s moving his head, he’s covering up. Why? He gets up, first thing he says is, ‘what are you doing?’ And listen, I really feel weird being the guy to go to bat for Colby cause I don’t like the guy.”
Serra believes Usman would have won the decision anyway given that he knocked Covington down twice in the final round. So it would only have been fair for the rest of the fight to play out:
“I feel that Usman would’ve got the decision,” Serra added. “So let him get the decision or see what else happens. I can’t just look at that stoppage and say, ‘yeah that was good.’ There might have been worse ones but it was pretty bad. It was pretty bad for what was at stake there.”
Do you agree with Sera?
