Henry Cejudo expects Leon Edwards to struggle staying up vs. Colby Covington.
Welterweight champion Edwards (20-3 MMA, 12-2 UFC) defends his title against Covington (17-3 MMA, 12-3 UFC) in the UFC 296 main event on Dec. 16 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Cejudo sees Covington’s grappling pedigree being a problem for Edwards. He points to Edwards’ first title fight vs. Kamaru Usman at UFC 278, where he was taken down five times and controlled for over two rounds before pulling off the comeback knockout to dethrone him.
“I think it’s a great matchup for him,” Cejudo said on his YouTube channel. “I think Kamaru Usman, when he lost the second matchup (to Edwards), he was playing more of a game of trying to strike. He wasn’t using his wrestling as much as he was in the first fight.
“I don’t know what the game plan was the second fight, but in the first fight, when he did fight Leon Edwards, besides him getting head kicked and knocked out, he was winning that fight. He was fighting the best fight you could possibly think – very tactical, very strategic, taking this dude down, ground-and-pounding him.”
Covington’s only setbacks in the past eight years have both come to Usman, where they predominantly stood and traded for almost 10 rounds of fighting. But against Edwards, Cejudo thinks Covington’s wrestling will be too much.
“The thing with Colby Covington and Leon Edwards is, Colby Covington just has one style, and that style is to just wrestle, to hug you,” Cejudo continued. “Yeah, his fight style is boring. He will just hug your legs, but Colby does finish people.
“He literally takes you down, he eventually starts pounding, and he starts doing X, Y and Z. This matchup is perfect for Colby. I think we are going to have a new champion. I don’t think Leon Edwards’ takedown defense is going to be enough for a guy like Colby Covington.”
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 296.
