Colby Covington wasn’t impressed with Justin Gaethje’s undisputed title win at UFC White House.
In one of the more stunning upsets in UFC history, Gaethje stopped Ilia Topuria via fourth-round corner stoppage TKO at the one-of-one event on the South Lawn in June.
While everyone was blown away with what “The Highlight” accomplished, Covington — who headlines Saturday’s RAF 11 event against Arman Tsarukyan — doesn’t see it the same way.
“He still sucks, let’s be honest,” Covington told MMA Fighting. “Little duck lip Gaethje, he’s still terrible. He’s not a good fighter. I mean, there’s a lot of controversies behind it. I saw that he had rocks in his gloves, there was something weird going on. I don’t know.
“I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but I saw the pictures. I saw the pictures in his wraps, and his wraps look so much different than any wrap I’ve ever seen in UFC history. So I don’t know. I don’t think it’s that impressive.”
The fight was almost stopped by the doctor in Round 3, but after an exchange in the corner, Topuria was able to head out into the fourth. Topuria’s face was mangled, but he fought hard to make it to the end of the round where the fight was stopped by his brother Alexandre.
In the second, Topuria hurt Gaethje badly and nearly got him out of there. But always the durable fighter, Gaethje made it out of danger and stole momentum as the fight went on.
When Covington reflects on the fight, the story of the battle is more on the side of the former champion.
“llia had him,” Covington said. “He should have gotten him out of there, but he kind of blew his wad and Justin was able to get his hand raised. But look at what Ilia had to go through, man. His mind was not in the fight. You could tell his mind was not in the fight., his mind was on his family, it’s on his divorce, it’s on his alimony and child support payments that he has to pay.
“I feel for Ilia. He’s going through a really bad breakup with his ex-wife and it became public. Who wants personal information like that to become public? The whole world was against him and he was really fighting an uphill battle.
“So Justin still sucks. Nothing special about Justin duck lip Gaethje.”
Covington notified the UFC of his retirement earlier this year, and while he isn’t fully retired from MMA, he’s focused on the growth of RAF, both as a competitor and investor. “Chaos” is now 3-0 for RAF with victories over former UFC middleweight champs Luke Rockhold and Chris Weidman, along with Dillon Danis. He now faces Tsarukyan at RAF 11, which streams exclusively on FOX Nation, who is 7-0 in RAF with wins in every event of 2026 including RAF Georgia this past weekend.
The 38-year-old Covington was hoping to get a spot on the UFC White House card, but it didn’t come to fruition. The former interim welterweight champ was asked about his thoughts regarding the entire event.
“As a whole, it was cool. It was awesome,” Covington explained. “I’m happy that President Trump had a great time. It was for his birthday, that was a celebration for Donald Trump, the greatest president that America’s ever had, a celebration for him and his birthday, the 250th [year of] independence of the greatest country that’s ever lived, America.
“So I thought it was awesome. The production was incredible, the whole setup was amazing on the South Lawn, and just a real spectacle at the world’s capital.”
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