EXCLUSIVE | After conquering welterweight, Colby Covington plans to go after Whittaker and Nurmagomedov

On May 12, in the co-main event of UFC 224, Colby Covington will head down to Brazil to battle local hero Rafael dos Anjos for the interim welterweight title.

As always, Covington is incredibly confident heading into this fight, and promises to dominate dos Anjos in front of his legions of Brazilian fans.

“You guys should all go invest your stocks and money into Kleenex because on May 12th, there’s gonna be a lot of tears around the world, and there’s gonna be a lot of tissues handed out,” Covington said on the latest episode of BJ Penn Radio. “RDA, that’s easy money, man. He’s a little Franken-nerd. I’m gonna dump his head and give him a swirly in Rio de Janeiro on May 12th on Pay-Per-View. So you don’t want to miss that.”

Should Covington defeat dos Anjos, the most likely option for his next fight would seem to be undisputed welterweight champ Tyron Woodley. That said, Covington doesn’t expect Woodley to return to the cage any time soon, so he might just head to middleweight to fight Robert Whittaker, or lightweight to fight Khabib Nurmagomedov.

“The thing with Woodley, he’s not gonna be ready for July [like he says],” Covington said. “He’s just faking. He just wanted to say that to the UFC so they wouldn’t make a interim title. But that’s why RDA took this fight [with me]. He knew that Woodley wasn’t coming back anytime soon. I heard reports that he’s not coming back til December—December 4th is when he’s targeting. So this is all just fake news, and fake media with what Woodley’s saying. That guy, he’s a piece of shit, man.”

“I don’t think Whittaker is that good, man,” Covington continued, outlining plans for efforts in other divisions. “He got knocked out by Stephen Thompson, and Stephen Thompson couldn’t hold my jock strap. So I might be looking to go up [to middleweight]. You know, I always wanted to get the belt [in] the harder weight class first. I’d rather go 170, get my belt, go to 185, smack Whittaker around, and then go to 155, and we’ll look for Khabib. He thinks he’s got good wrestling and pressure and pace. He’s never felt a pace in wrestling like me. So I’d love to go smack him around in Russia.”

What do you think of Colby Covington’s plans for the future?

This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 4/4/2018.