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The main event of the recently concluded UFC 245 show between Kamaru Usman and Colby Covington ended up being one of the best title fights of the year.
The two grapplers put on a stand-up war in which 'The Nigerian Nightmare' shattered Covington's jaw en-route to a hard-fought TKO victory in the fifth round.
Chaos, however, wasn't too pleased with referee Mike Goddard's stoppage as he felt he was conscious enough to continue fighting,
On the recent edition of UFC's Unfiltered podcast, Matt Serra was also of the opinion that the Welterweight Championship fight may have been stopped a little too early.
Serra explained that Covington fought valiantly with a broken jaw for ten straight minutes and was even seen moving his head when he got dropped by Usman.
Covington got up right after the stoppage and protested against the decision and Serra believed that the premature decision from the referee was not the right call.
“I felt that was definitely a little premature. F**k, the guy’s fighting almost 10 minutes with a broken jaw. He went down, he’s moving his head, he’s covering up. Why? He gets up, first thing he says is, ‘what are you doing?’ And listen I really feel weird being the guy to go to bat for Colby cause I don’t like the guy.”
Serra added that Usman may have won via decision if the fight had gone the distance. He also stated that stoppages of such nature hamper a fight with such high stakes and that it should be avoided at all costs.
“I feel that Usman would’ve got the decision. So let him get the decision or see what else happens. I can’t just look at that stoppage and say, ‘yeah that was good.’ There might have been worse ones but it was pretty bad. It was pretty bad for what was at stake there." H/t Credit: BJPenn
Did Mike Goddard do the right thing by stopping the fight? There are valid points on both sides of the argument, however, the fight is now in the books and Usman was clearly the better fighter.
Usman is most likely set to face either Jorge Masvidal or Leon Edwards in his next title defence. Regarding Covington, there are no updates about his future.
