Colby Covington looks to be a clear favorite over Jorge Masvidal

It is hard to understand how Colby Covington is not a bigger favorite over Jorge Masvidal. On one hand, Masvidal has defied expectations during his late career run, but on the other hand, Covington presents a very bad stylistic matchup for the former boat yard competitor.The Oregon State wrestler’s advantages are clear even from a cursory glance at the stat sheet.

Obviously Covington is a strong wrestler. He lands 4.10 takedowns per 15 minutes, which is the 15th highest rate among ranked UFC fighters. Excluding his two match series against welterweight champion Kamaru Usman, that number improves to 5.25. The rate would be fifth among the same group behind only the grappling centric crew of Mateusz Gamrot (6.10), Curtis Blaydes (6.27), Ricky Simon (6.62), Gregor Gillespie (6.86) and Merab Dvalishvili (7.30).

While Masvidal has somewhat impressive takedown defense considering he has stopped 75% of the takedown attempts he has faced in his UFC/Strikeforce career. However, he still allows 1.46 takedowns per 15 minutes, which is above the average for a ranked UFC fighter (1.11). 

Even when stopping takedowns, Masvidal has let his opponents use those attempts to establish position along the cage and control him for extended periods of time. For example, in his first fight against Usman, Masvidal only allowed five of Usman’s 16 takedown attempts. However, Usman was still able to hold control positions for 16:38 (67%). Masvidal landed only 66 significant strikes in the fight. That 2.64 significant strikes landed per minute rate was the fourth lowest of his UFC/Strikeforce career.

Masvidal has only been held in control positions for 18%* of his cage time in the UFC/Strikeforce. While that is respectable, the difference between his wins and losses has been drastic. In his victories, he has only been controlled for 11% of his control time, while he has been controlled for 25% of his fight time in losses.

Covington is at the other end of the spectrum. For his UFC career, he has held control positions for 45% of his cage time. Excluding his two fights against Usman, he controlled 57% of his time in the Octagon. It is hard to overstate the importance of control in modern MMA. Since Jan. 1, 2021, fighters with 50% or more control time have gone 134-29-1 in the UFC and DWCS. 

While Covington likely will have a grappling advantage, that will also probably be exacerbated by his size advantage. He is not the largest welterweight, but Masvidal spent a lot of time in his career down at lightweight. Despite the late career run at welterweight, he has gone only 7-6 at 170 pounds in the UFC, and three of those victories came over fighters who were probably best at lightweight (Donald Cerrone, Ross Pearson and Nate Diaz). 

As previously mentioned, there have been 29 fighters who won despite giving up over 50% control time. Of those 29 wins, 13 were by KO/TKO, nine were by submission and seven were by decision. Masvidal has shown the type of finishing power to win despite being controlled. While he only has 11 knockdowns in his 26-fight UFC/Strikeforce career, four of those knockdowns have come in his last five fights. 

The good news for Covington is that he is usually durable. He has been knocked down four times in the UFC, but all four of those came in the two-fight series against Usman. On top of that, he has prodigious volume that will prevent Masvidal from moving forward. Covington lands both strikes (4.14 significant strikes per minute) and takedowns (4.10 per 15 minutes) at impressive rates. He is also not afraid to miss. He misses 6.63 significant strikes per minute and 4.70 takedowns per 15 minutes. In many cases this gives an opponent opportunities to counter. However, when Covington is at his best, it is part of his strategy of overwhelming an opponent with volume and grinding the fight away with pace. 

Usman was able to stop this onslaught of somewhat reckless volume by landing powerful counters and having strong wrestling of his own. While Masvidal might be able to make Covington pay for attacking wildly, he will not be able to make the same impact in the grappling department. This fight might end up looking similar to an early career Covington fight, but he might be able to do enough with simply his wrestling to win this contest.