Midnight Mania! The King Of Miami

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Welcome to Midnight Mania!

Welterweight is a strange division. The 170-pound king is Kamaru Usman, who has the division in a complete stranglehold to the point that he’s lapping all the top contenders. Then, there’s still kind of a BMF champion in Jorge Masvidal, the one-off belt awarded to “Gamebred” for slicing up Nate Diaz … despite a trio of losses since then.

Why not add a third strange belt to the mix? Welterweight drama tends to take place in Florida, where several of the top-ranked fighters — like Gilbert Burns and Vicente Luque, in addition to those mentioned — reside. As a slap in the face to all those athletes, Colby Covington claims to have been sent another belt, the “King Of Miami” strap.

“I might have got sent a belt. It’s title season over here boys. It was a big fight for Miami. You guys got to tune in you know,” Covington said to Submission Radio (via BJPenn.com). “This was something bigger. It was the King of Miami title fight, it was the big one. Stay tuned for the coronation. I promise you. There’s pics to follow this weekend, it’s going to be a great celebration in history… Yeah, it’s gotta be a part of fight week. It’s an important part of fight week. It’s the most prestigious title in the UFC today. To retain that belt, whoever gets to hold that belt, its the biggest piece of 20 lbs of gold that you’ve ever seen. It’s just a beautiful immaculate piece. So the fact that you even get to fight for it, is the biggest honor and the biggest moment you’re ever going to get in your entire life.”

The picture above is from Covington’s time partying with the Nelk boys, brandishing his tropical strap in public. Perhaps the real question here: what are the odds Covington was sent that belt rather than put in a custom order?

Either way, Midnight Mania will be here to capture Masivdal’s inevitable response in the coming weeks.

Insomnia

Shoutout to the English fight fans for making UFC London an extra special night.

At some point in the last couple years, Davey Grant was reborn as a wild knockout artist, and we’re all better off for it.

Heavyweights are definitely at an advantage for this headlining stat, but also credit to Randy Couture for staying on top/relevant for so long.

This is awesome.

Okay, maybe it’s not THAT crazy this fight was stopped early.

Butterfly guard is the best guard in MMA, change my mind!

Slips, rips, and KO clips

Excellent pull and return here:

Am I wrong in feeling that uppercut knockouts are growing more common?

Look low, kick high!

Random Land

Rooster > Rat.

Midnight Music: Heavy traffic this AM let me listen to more Dark Side of the Moon than planned, and what can I say, it’s an all-time classic for obvious reasons.

Sleep well Maniacs! More martial arts madness is always on the way.