That wasn’t supposed to happen.
UFC 331 featured one of the biggest upsets of all time, as Sean Sharaf scored the first win of his UFC career by starching Olympic gold medalist and Jon Jones‘ protege Gable Steveson (watch here). In the literal first exchange of the fight, Sharaf caught Steveson pulling backwards with a massive left hook, knocking him completely out cold in just 12 seconds.
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Steveson and Jones fled the arena to a shower of boos.
At least one person, however, was not surprised. Retired (for now) UFC Welterweight title challenger Colby Covington recently weighed in on the shocking upset, revealing he wasn’t particularly surprised by the outcome. Per “Chaos,” Steveson got a little too confident in himself and forgot about his wrestling roots.
“I definitely saw this coming,” Covington told Submission Radio (via MMA Junkie). “You know, he was over-hyping himself, overlooking other competitors, and he just thought he was invincible. He’s a great athlete, Olympic-champ wrestler, but when you get away from what brought you to the dance, that’s never going to be good for you, and he’s got away from that.
“You don’t see him try to wrestle in any fights, he’s just going straight into striking. I don’t know if that’s because he doesn’t believe in his cardio or he just fell in love with the hands and he just wants to knock guys out, but when you forget about what got you to the dance, that’s always going to be a recipe for disaster.”
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Per Covington, those aren’t the only issues for Steveson either. Covington is unimpressed by Jones’ role as Steveson’s coach and mentor, believing that Jones’ “bad energy” is also playing a role in dragging down Steveson.
“Jon Jones is bad energy,” Covington said. “That guy is a demon, man. We’ve seen the long laundry list of bad things he’s done to women, to people, to cops, to drug testers. He’s just a horrible person, bro. When you align yourself with, and you’re surrounded by that bad energy all the time, it’s going to rub off on you.
“You’ve got to surround yourself in this life with good people that are like-minded, that work hard, that have faith in God, and aren’t just freaking piece of s—t people like Jon Jones. So he should definitely cut Jon Jones, and get to a new camp, and get focused, and start believing, and start using his wrestling, what got you to the dance.”
The fallout of Steveson’s knockout loss is very much a still-developing situation. Given his history of abandoned athletic pursuits, we don’t know for certain that Steveson will try to fight again, let alone completely switch up his camp. As for Jones, this is his first public move towards a coaching role, and having his star pupil knocked out in such brutal fashion has to be frustrating.
At a minimum, actually trying to wrestle feels like a great idea if Steveson does indeed fight again.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: Sports.yahoo.com
