Covington is convinced Makhachev won't take that risk despite talk of wanting to move up.
"Will Makhachev move up to the welterweight division? No. He's doing the same thing his daddy Khabib did. 'Oh, I'm going to move up to welterweight and fight for the second belt.' They'll never do that. They just talk the talk, but they won't do it.
So he's doing the same thing that Khabib did back in the day, pretending that you're so tough, that you're the greatest pound-for-pound fighter. But he's not doing that. If he wanted to, he would have done it a long time ago," Covington said.