Geoff Neal has gone off like a bomb on Colby Covington.
Despite being on the sidelines since a March 2022 win over Jorge Masvidal, UFC President Dana White has confirmed ‘Chaos’ will be getting the next welterweight title shot… As you might imagine, not everybody was on board with this idea, including the champion Leon Edwards.
Neal On Covington’s ‘Confusing’ Title Shot
Covington has come up short in both of his past undisputed title opportunities, losing to then-champ Kamaru Usman in 2019 and 2021, which begs the question: why is he getting a third crack at gold? The #8 ranked Neal is left flabbergasted by it.
“It’s confusing, man,” Neal told Middle Easy. “It’s so annoying. I just wish everybody would f*cking fight. It’s our job to fight. I know there’s like money viewers and all that shit, but, uh, it’s our job to fight motherf*ckers just want to like run around.”
‘Belal Should Be Fighting For A Title’ — Covington ‘Hasn’t Done Sh*t’
One contender who has managed to keep active is Belal Muhammad, who is on a hot 10-fight unbeaten streak with wins over Gilbert Burns, Sean Brady and Vicente Luque. Neal believes Muhammad should be fighting Leon Edwards next rather than the ‘run around’ Covington.
Belal should be fighting for a title. I think he deserves it,” Neal said of Muhammad. “I think he’s earned it, but in due time he might get there. We’ll see how it plays out. I just feel like the [next title] fight should just make sense. Colby hasn’t done nothing to deserve another damn title shot. Like, if I’m being honest, he hasn’t done sh*t. He hasn’t fought anybody, like let him fight somebody else.”
Covington might not be the most deserving in the division, but he sure knows how to promote a fight and that’s probably why White is so determined to have him fight Edwards.
What About Khamzat?
Another name that comes to mind at welterweight is the undefeated Khamzat Chimaev. However, ‘Borz’ may have ‘fumbled the bag’ for a welterweight title fight when he missed weight by a big margin in his booking against Nate Diaz (he instead fought Kevin Holland at 180lbs).
Neal says there’s a possibility that Chimaev will drop down to 170 once again, but it might not the best idea.
“I think he might come down to 170, but I feel like he’s not gonna be able to maintain making the weight cut to 170, I don’t think so. It’ll be dumb for him to come down,” Neal said of Chimaev.
“He might come down and try to fight for a title, win the title, and then never fight again at 170, you know? I think he should just go in his natural weight class and stop f*cking around at 170. But we’ll see how it plays out.”
Geoff Neal is scheduled to fight the rising Ian Garry at UFC 292 on August 19th.
