Colby Covington’s recent nasty insult to Leon Edwards’ deceased father caused the MMA community to ponder about the limits of trash-talking. Kamaru Usman is one of the latest fighters to talk about it, saying the culture could be explained by Conor McGregor’s success and fame in the industry.
Prior to the UFC 296 last Saturday, Covington caught the attention of the MMA world after including Edwards’ murdered father in his trash talk to the champ. Fellow fighters lambasted the action, including UFC CEO Dana White, who admitted that “Chaos” crossed the line. Usman echoed the sentiment, saying an act like what Covington showed originates from today’s setup, where one can easily voice out a message and the will to be recognized by others. The “Nigerian Nightmare” believes this will be explained by how current MMA fighters and fans view McGregor, who managed to succeed in his career while boasting a trash-talking character.
“There wasn’t a line that McGregor wasn’t willing to cross. We saw where that got him. McGregor’s probably one of the most famous mixed martial arts fighters ever, no doubt. With that, you have all these young kids now looking at that and going, ‘Oh yeah, I can just say and do whatever I want to do that’s going to make me famous.’”
Yet, for the former welterweight champ, there’s a limit to such a practice, explaining why a man’s fight should stay with those directly involved.
“As I believe in war, wars wage with men. Men wage wars,” said Usman on the PBD Podcast. “It’s very difficult to start attacking women and children. That just has never been a thing that men do. When they say sign up for war, it’s men that sign up. We sign up, and we go defend. And so the same thing with what we’re doing because in a way we’re waging war with one another. When we do these things, that’s what men do. We leave those out because it’s between us.”
