Colby Covington is not biting his tongue about the UFC anymore.
Earlier this month, the UFC announced its lineup for the highly-anticipated UFC White House card, and despite months of campaigning for a spot, Covington got snubbed. As a man who built his entire brand around his love for President Donald Trump, the lost opportunity hit Covington hard, leading the former UFC interim welterweight champion to rip the UFC for treating him “like shit.”
And Covington is not done putting the promotion on blast.
Covington spent time with popular streamer N3on recently, and while answering questions about the UFC, “Chaos” again took aim at how the UFC treats its fighters.
“You have no say,” Covington said. “Hunter Campbell, who is like the UFC lawyer, he kind of just tells you what direction they’re going to go, and it’s either you take it or leave it. So, you don’t really get a choice what you want to do. They just leave you. They ice you. They won’t give you fights. They’ll just let you sit out there. They’ll say, ‘Hey, you turned down this fight, now you’re not going to fight for the year. You’re not going to make money.’ They’ll freeze you out.
“Even if it’s not a good move, and you’re not getting paid what you think you deserve, it doesn’t matter. They say, ‘You either accept it and be a company man, or we’ll just ice you, and you don’t get a fight to make money.’”
Earlier this month, Covington suggested this is what was happening with him, which partially explains why he hasn’t fought in 15 months. And at 38 years old, a layoff like that really eats into the last of Covington’s best years of competition. And at this point, “years” isn’t even the right word.
“So, for UFC, I think, probably in the next year or so, I’m going to be done with it, because you don’t want to take too many shots to the head when you’re later in age,” Covington said. “And my body is slowing down; my metabolism doesn’t recover like it used to. So, when I train two or three times, I don’t recover like I used to in my 20s. So, I see myself done in the next year or so.
“But wrestling, I know I can do for another six, seven, eight years, because it’s low-impact.”
While Covington’s UFC career has slowed considerably over the past few years, the former NCAA All-American wrestler recently found new life in Real American Freestyle, beating Luke Rockhold in his RAF debut in January, and is now set to face Dillon Danis at RAF 7 next week.
When his UFC career is done, Covington intends to lean further into his wrestling career, but if he can ever get off ice with the UFC, he still has a few things he’d like to do in the cage before he’s done.
“I want big names,” Covington said. “I want something that gets me excited to get out of bed. They’re talking about fighting nobodies or no-names that do nothing for me. I would just be fighting for money. I don’t want to just fight for money. I want to fight for legacy.”
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I know I’m an old washed man, because I do not understand how Neon is famous or what the appeal of his content is. I suppose that’s how life goes. You age out, and the kids have the things they like.
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