Colby Covington on Monday decried the truth that his UFC bout in opposition to Joaquin Buckley on Saturday in Tampa, Florida, was stopped within the third spherical as a result of extreme bleeding from a lower above his proper eye.
“I used to be simply getting warmed up in that struggle,” Covington mentioned on his YouTube channel. “I feel it was tied up 1-1, and I used to be beginning to put on on him. I might see him respiration out of his mouth. I used to be beginning to catch him with extra photographs, so it is unlucky that they stopped it.”
However, UFC legend Chael Sonnen, who was in Covington’s nook in the course of the struggle, revealed that he practically threw within the towel to finish the competition earlier than the physician stepped in.
“[Covington was] busted open so unhealthy that the physician has to have a look at it 3 times,” Sonnen, who additionally works for ESPN, mentioned on his YouTube channel. “Twice, he stops the motion to let it preserve going. The third time, he goes, ‘We cannot preserve going anymore.’
“I used to be going to cease that struggle. I already grabbed the towel. When the physician got here in for the third time, and I’m watching that blood — it isn’t stopping. It goes into the attention, and that is the one factor you are actually searching for.
“When we as struggle followers, we as robust guys, assume the physician ought to’ve stopped it — we’re speaking about it does not actually matter how unhealthy the lower is from our perspective, so long as it isn’t going within the eye. If it is blinding the man, it does not matter if it is slightly or rather a lot. If it is in his eye and he can now not see out of that eye, it is the very same factor. … This was unhealthy, and it was within the eye. I mentioned, ‘Hand me that towel, I’m stopping this.'”
Covington (17-5) had a special perspective following his first struggle in a 12 months.
“Even [UFC president] Dana [White] got here out and mentioned, ‘If that was in Vegas, that will have by no means been stopped.’ I took his hardest photographs, and so they had been nothing. They did not faze me in any respect. I used to be strolling proper down, so we’ll come again stronger.”
Buckley improved his MMA document to 21-6.
Field Level Media contributed to this report.
