It’s doubtful too many people found themselves broken up over Colby Covington’s retirement from the UFC, not with that shtick that had a hard time shticking. The UFC deleted him from the roster with a snap of its fingers on Monday, and just like that — poof — he was gone. No different from Brad Riddell and Mayra Bueno Silva, fighters who were jettisoned on the same day.
It was an awfully quiet way to step aside for anyone who’s followed Covington’s career. Though he never won a title, Colby was the UFC’s all-time leader in obnoxious moments until Sean Strickland came along.
(Covington, it might be remembered, called Strickland “a pathetic excuse of a human being.” I recall somebody on X responding to a post of that very quote with, “Colby’s nickname should be ‘The Kettle.’” As far as repartees go, that might’ve been cleverer than anything we’d seen from the Covington playbook.)
If there’s a tragicomical element to the timing of this, it’s that Covington’s run comes to an end less than a month before the UFC holds its big presidential birthday bash at the White House. For Covington, this was an Arcadia, his personal Super Bowl, a Mecca for the MAGA mind — it was an event specifically tailor-made for him after his yearslong devotion to Donald Trump. Knowing Covington’s style, he himself might’ve called it a “money shot moment” or perhaps bragged about doing his camp at Mar-a-Lago, who the hell knows.
Thing is, we’ll never find out.
Though he took patriotic expression to the extremes — often to the thong-infested swimming pools of South Florida — either he turned down a fight against Bo Nickal or he didn’t, depending on who you believe. As with everything Covington-related, separating fact from fiction became the game within the game.
In the end, he’s not only not on the card, he’s done with the company that, in his own words, “made me a self-made millionaire.”
Not that Colby’s leaving the fight game entirely. He’s now swinging all attention into competing in Real American Freestyle (RAF). He has his next match already scheduled for May 30 against Chris Weidman at RAF 9 in Arlington, Texas, as a matter of fact. He’s still going to be in the periphery of the public eye in the wrestling venture, though — for UFC fans who’ve come to love or hate him — not directly in it.
“I just want meaningful fights that add to my legacy — if it doesn’t add to my legacy, then what’s the point?” Covington asked on “The Ariel Helwani Show” recently. “Am I just going to fight for money now? It’s not about money to me. I got in this sport, like every wrestler does, because you do it for the glory. You don’t do it for the money.”
Covington’s legacy, of course, is a tricky one.
He was 17-5 in the UFC, which is unassailable by even the strictest standards, yet he was 0-3 in title fights — a couple of which were gifted to him. In the first one at UFC 245, Kamaru Usman (a.k.a. “Marty Snoozeman”) shut him up quite literally by breaking his jaw. In his second chance, once again against Usman at UFC 268, he made up the louder half of a dull affair, and lost just the same. By the time he got his third chance, against Leon Edwards (a.k.a. “Edward Scissorhands”), his shtick felt tired even for the indefatigable subset of Colby defenders and enthusiasts on social media.
He lost that one, too, via decision.
His final fight came in a Fight Night main event against Joaquin Buckley (a.k.a. “A Nobody”) in December 2024, a sad affair in which he showed up in a diminished form. He ended his UFC run on a 2-4 skid, with his last victory coming against his former training partner/former bestie, Jorge Masvidal (a.k.a. “Street Judas”) in 2022. Masvidal came to hate Covington so much that he (allegedly) ambushed Colby outside a Papi Steak restaurant in Miami Beach.
Covington filed a lawsuit against Masvidal last month, seeking $50,000 in damages.
Still, from the time he burst on the scene after beating Demian Maia and offending the entire country of Brazil by calling it a “dump” full of “filthy animals,” his raison d’être has seemed to be to: A) rile people up, B) insult every fighter in his vicinity, C) drink as many “nerd’s tears” as we were willing to give, and D) make Donald Trump a polarizing extension of his own personality.
Everything Covington did was leading to the West Lawn. To the White House, where America’s political leaders will be cageside come June for what is (not so coincidentally) the president’s 80th birthday. Covington would sometimes bring Donald Trump Jr.’s book “Triggered” to the dais with him, reading passages and dreaming of an alliance.
Now the whole thing can’t help but be triggering. For Colby, not being on the card must sting worse than any of those squandered title shots. And now his UFC legacy, on some level, goes down as an unconsummated love affair.
Which is perhaps fitting. If anyone could recognize a virgin, it was Colby Covington. He saw his detractors — meaning a good portion of his viewing audience — as virgins. You know, people who haven’t had sex yet. He said that Ben Askren (a.k.a. “Ben Ass Cream”), that “Napoleon Dynamite-looking virgin,” had children through “science and test tubes,” which Askren soon disputed. He said Stephen “Wonderboy” Thompson wasn’t only a virgin, but a “choirboy” to boot, which is perhaps the meanest thing ever said about that fight game saint.
Covington had something for everyone, though. He said Tyron Woodley (a.k.a. “Tyquil”) was a “communist and a Marxist” and, worse, a bad rapper. He called Nate Diaz a “journeyman,” Alexander Volkanovski “a midget,” Khamzat Chimaev “C*m Shot,” and Khabib Nurmagomedov “Kabob.” He even said that Dustin Poirier’s charity, The Good Fight Foundation, was nothing more than a tax write-off.
Forced? Damn right it was. Right down to the bright blazers and sunglasses and scantily dressed women at his side.
Nobody was sure if he was supposed to be a heel, a pro-wrestling persona, or if he was even in character at all. Sometimes he crossed the line. He went after Leon Edwards’ late father in the build-up to their fight, saying, “I’m bringing you to the seventh layer of hell — we’ll say, ‘what’s up’ to your dad while we’re there.’” If there were such a thing as trash talk etiquette, Covington made sure it didn’t apply to him.
What is the legacy of a guy like Covington? A very good fighter who said he was constructed of “raw American steel and twisted sex appeal,” who took the role of Ugly American as a duty, at all times happily tone deaf to a cringing audience? At best he was a provocateur, but when he said he’d dunk his nuts on Rafael dos Anjos’ head, I can remember thinking the early comparisons of him being MMA’s Andy Kaufman were … you know … perhaps a bit generous.
In any case, he made us look there for a while. Each of his final seven UFC fights were headlining spots, and in each case, it would be hard to argue he wasn’t the A-side. If anybody showed the way to Sean Strickland and Josh Hokit, it was Colby, who was always trying to make something — from America to the welterweight division — great again.
It was a quiet farewell to the UFC, and the UFC was at least kind enough to warn him to not let the door hit him on the way out.
Some people leave the UFC on a stretcher. Some leave with a whimper.
In Colby’s case, at least he got the luckier of the two.