There are many reasons that Covington feels he was screwed at UFC 245, with the first being that Usman allegedly faked some eye pokes and low blows.
“(In) the second, I get a timeout. ‘Oh, nice job. Let me call a nut shot.’ The dude got hit in the liver and was ready to fold up like a lawn chair,” Covington said on Ariel Helwani’s MMA Show (via Nolan King of MMA Junkie). “Then all of a sudden he wants to call a nut shot? That’s the fakest foul I’ve ever heard in all of fighting. In the third round, ‘Marty Fakenewsman’ gets poked in the left eye. He’s holding his right eye. He’s selling to the doctor that, ‘Oh, my right eye. Oh, my right eye.’ Dude, you got poked in the left eye. What are you doing? You’re faker than fake. That’s why you’re ‘Marty Fakenewsman.’ You’re making fake excuses. You want a momentum change. That’s what this is all about. We go to the fourth round (and) oh – I get poked by ‘Marty Fakenewsman? Marc Goddard looks at me, ‘No more timeouts. You guys keep fighting. No more timeouts. I’m not stopping it.’ So he sees a clear foul where I get poked.”
Covington was finished via fifth round TKO by Usman, suffering a fractured jaw in the process of the fight.
A defeated Covington says he was winning the whole fight before referee Marc Goddard made a bad call in ending the fight.
“Let’s talk about the fifth round,” Covington said. “I’m beating his ass again. I’ve won the whole entire fight. The fight is mine. They’re about to wrap the welterweight championship around my waist. Then all of a sudden, I slip on a banana peel and I’m getting hit in the back of the head. Marc Goddard is seeing this right in front of his face. I’m getting hit in the back in the head. Go look at the video in the fifth round. I took four shots to the back of the head. I’m completely coherent and I cover up the back of my head. When I cover up the back of my head, he calls the fight. I stand right up and I protest. ‘What are you doing? Why are you calling the fight? I’m winning the whole entire fight. There’s less than a minute left in the fight and you see a foul in front of your face and you don’t call it. Then when you don’t see a foul in front of your face, you give him time and throw him a life raft in a river when he’s drowning.’ That’s why he’s named ‘Marc Not-so-Goodard.'”
The former interim welterweight champion also said in the interview that he plans on returning at UFC International Fight Week, but nothing has been made official at this time.
