Kamaru Usman vs. Colby Covington 2: A Head-to-Toe Breakdown

In late 2019, UFC welterweight champion Kamaru Usman and top-ranked contender Colby Covington engaged in one of the year's best fights. This Saturday, in the main event of UFC 268 in New York City, the pair will run it back with Usman's welterweight belt once again hanging in the balance.

Usman won his first fight with Covington by fifth-round TKO, but the bout was competitive right down to the last blow, with the two wrestling specialists exchanging a dizzying 318 total strikes by the time the referee intervened. 

Usman, now widely considered the best pound-for-pound fighter competing today, has won three straight since besting Covington, first defeating Jorge Masvidal by decision, then knocking out Gilbert Burns, then knocking out Masvidal in a rematch. Covington, meanwhile, got back on track with a September 2020 TKO victory over Tyron Woodley, but he hasn't fought since. 

Since their first fight, both men have also changed training camps. After a lengthy stint at Sanford MMA, Usman now trains under the famed Trevor Wittman. Covington, on the other hand, left his longtime home of American Top Team after feuding with half the fighters who train there, and has settled at MMA Masters.

While Usman and Covington's first fight shed a lot of light on how they match up, a lot has changed in the two years since, meaning their rematch could be full of surprises.

Predicting the exact outcome is as tough an ask as always, but a closer look at their respective games reveals some interesting insights.

Keep scrolling to see how they match up in 2021.

Despite starting as wrestlers, Usman and Covington have both evolved into proficient strikers—and they're actually quite similar when it comes to that facet of the game. Both men like to press forward and throw volume, and the stats reflect that.

Usman lands a skull-rattling 4.63 significant strikes per minute and hits his target on 54 percent of strike attempts. In terms of defense, he absorbs just 2.4 significant strikes per minute, avoiding 57 percent of the strikes thrown at him. 

Covington's stats are slightly less impressive, but impressive all the same. He lands 4.12 significant strikes per minute and boasts a striking accuracy rate of 38 percent—therefore falling short of Usman in both categories. He also absorbs slightly more punishment than Usman, getting hit with an average of 2.86 significant strikes per minute and avoiding only 55 percent of all the strikes thrown at him. 

In other words, Usman is the marginally more effective striker as far as the stats are concerned. Consider the fact that he's also clearly more powerful than Covington, earning 47 percent of his victories by knockout or TKO compared to his rival's 12 percent, and it's fairly evident that he's the better striker of the two. 

The outcome of the pair's first fight, of course, supports that argument.

Edge: Usman

Kamaru Usman and Colby Covington, both decorated collegiate wrestlers, are phenomenal on the mat. In fact, they're arguably two of the best wrestlers competing in MMA today, regardless of weight class. Unfortunately, that makes it very difficult to say which man is superior in this department, and it certainly doesn't help that they did no wrestling in their first fight.

So, let's go to the stats.

Covington, who tends to use his wrestling to smother his foes and threaten with chokes, completes a frenetic 4.61 takedowns per 15 minutes and boasts a takedown accuracy rate of 50 percent. The man completes half of the takedowns he attempts—that's impressive.

Usman, on the other hand, typically uses his wrestling to collect control time and set up ground-and-pound. He completes 3.27 takedowns per 15 minutes—shy of Covington's mark but still nothing to smirk at—and comes in just behind his challenger in terms of takedown accuracy at 48 percent. That being said, the welterweight champion earns points for racking up an insane 1:56:56 of control in the Octagon—a figure that puts him at sixth all-time. Speaking of records, he also has the best takedown defense rate in the UFC, having been grounded precisely zero times in the Octagon.

When it comes to the wrestling side of this matchup, it's razor-close. However, Usman's statistically verifiable habit of controlling the majority of his opponents and his impregnable takedown defense rate are too impressive to ignore.

He gets the edge, but only by a hair.

Edge: Usman

Neither Usman nor Covington is on the level of Demian Maia—whom they both happen to have beaten—when it comes to jiu-jitsu. However, Covington is clearly the more effective submission fighter of the two.

Neither man has shown much interest in submissions in the UFC, attempting just 0.1 submissions per 15 minutes each, but Covington has a proven propensity for ending fights in this fashion that predates his move to the Octagon. Usman simply doesn't.

Covington has earned a decent four of his 16 victories by submission. Usman, meanwhile, has earned just one of 19 victories in this fashion. That's a 25 percent submission rate compared to a 5 percent submission rate.

There's not much room for debate on this one.

Edge: Covington

Usman's X-Factor: Don't be Overconfident

By now, Kamaru Usman has undoubtedly heard fans and pundits refer to him as the best pound-for-pound fighter in MMA today. Throw in the fact that he's already beaten Covington once before, and it's easy to imagine how he might get a little overconfident heading into the UFC 268 main event. 

Overconfidence could be his undoing here, as Covington will likely be even more determined and tenacious than he was the first time around—a menacing vision for even the most dominant champion.

Covington's X-Factor: Don't Expect the Same Fight

Covington came very close to beating Usman the first time they fought. As such, he may be thinking that all he needs to do to win the rematch is make a few key adjustments. Unfortunately for him, it's probably not going to be that simple. Usman has improved leaps and bounds since their first meeting, most notably discovering some latent knockout power.

If Covington enters the cage with the intention of beating the man he lost to two years ago, he's in for a rude awakening. The champion has become an entirely more lethal force in that timeframe.

Ahead of Usman and Covington's first fight, there was widespread discussion about their many similarities and how they seemed to be completely evenly matched on paper. Heading into their rematch, the stats paint a similar picture. However, Usman seems to have bolstered all of the skills he had in his first fight with Covington with some newly discovered knockout power. There's no reason to believe that Covington, who has fought just once since he lost to Usman, has had that kind of game-changing breakthrough. 

Covington figures to be a tough challenge again, but all the signs point to Usman being able to do what he did in the first fight, and probably a little faster and a little more cleanly. 

Prediction: Kamaru Usman by TKO, Rd. 3 

Unless otherwise noted, all stats in this article are per UFC Stats.