The cut over Colby Covington’s eye at UFC Tampa was so bad that his longtime friend and cornerman Chael Sonnen was ready to stop his fight against Joaquin Buckley if the doctor and the referee didn’t do it first.
It was a rough night at the office for Covington after he got battered around the octagon for two-plus rounds with Buckley in control throughout, but a gash opened early in the fight only continued to get worse with each passing minute. By the time the fight was deep into the third round, Covington was wearing a crimson mask but even worse, the blood from the cut was pouring right into his eye and even Sonnen felt like enough was enough.
“He’s busted open so bad the doctor has to look at it three times,” Sonnen said about the fight on his YouTube channel. “Twice he stops the action to let it keep going. The third time he said ‘we can’t go anymore.’ I was going to stop that fight. I already grabbed the towel. When the doctor came in for the third time, and I’m watching that blood, it’s not stopping and it is going into the eye. That’s the only thing you’re really looking for.
“When we as fight fans, we as tough guys, think the doctor should have stopped it, we’re talking about it doesn’t really matter how bad the cut is from our perspective as long as it’s not going in the eye. If it’s blinding a guy, it doesn’t matter if it’s a little or a lot, if it’s in his eye, and he can no longer see out of that eye, it’s the same thing. It’s the exact same thing.”
Following the end of the fight, Covington barely stuck around to hear the result before he stormed out of the octagon while Buckley started his celebration.
At the post-fight press conference, UFC CEO Dana White said that he believes the fight would have been allowed to continue if the bout was happening in Nevada versus Florida.
That may be White’s opinion but Sonnen actually disagrees and he backs the decision to stop the fight.
“This was bad,” Sonnen said about the cut. “This was in the eye. I literally stood up so I could see what the doctor was doing. I told Charlie, the No. 2 [coach], I said ‘hand me that towel, I’m stopping this.’ I bring that to you because the referee was taking some criticism. Well, let me be fair here, I saw what they saw.”
While the fight ended due to the cut, Sonnen still praised Covington’s toughness while going up against a real powerhouse in Buckley, who was unloading huge, heavy shots throughout.
Covington struggled to get much offense going outside of a takedown in the second round but even that didn’t give him much of an advantage as Buckley stayed patient until he was able to work his way back to the feet.
Still, Sonnen wishes things played out a little differently given Covington’s conditioning and ability to push a pace that most opponents can’t keep up with.
“I think we were down both rounds going into the third,” Sonnen said. “But then I was told that one of the judges had it 1-1. I’m not here to relive that, I just felt that the tide was turning. Buckley was a real sport about that. He said ‘hey, I was fading a little bit’ and it’s important that Buckley understands that.
“Because Buckley did nothing wrong. He just has to learn how to extend. If you’re going to be fighting like this, you do such a good job with the media, he’s going to be headlining events. So that means he’s going to be in the five round club and it’s good for Buckley to know where that energy goes.”
The scorecards released after the fight actually had Covington down 20-18 across the board and the third round didn’t start much different than the previous two.
Regardless, Sonnen praised Covington for the heart he showed throughout the fight, especially his ability to take Buckley’s best punches without backing down whatsoever.
“There was nowhere Colby even winced,” Sonnen said. “There was nowhere that he flinched. There was never a time he stepped backwards. There was not a time he went down and I offer you that because there was a time that he went down but it wasn’t from a punch. There was a punch as he slipped as he went down.
“When you look at the grit-meter, this was one of Colby’s best fights. When you look at the digging deep, this does not replace the fight with Kamaru Usman but godd*mn, it’s right there. When you look at grit, you look at the shots that he took, you look at the damage that they did, he did not care.”
