The more Colby Covington stews over getting rejected for the UFC White House card, the angrier he gets. “Chaos” is in the middle of a promotional push where he’s speaking with all the MMA media, and he’s gone from being ‘bummed’ about the exclusion to fully pissed off.
In a new interview with Submission Radio, Covington went off on the UFC for what he calls years of disrespect and mistreatment. He reminded the world that the promotion stripped him of his interim welterweight title for refusing a fight on four weeks notice. He claimed the UFC promised to take care of him after he stepped in last-minute to compete at UFC Tampa against Joaquin Buckley. Since that one-sided loss, he says, there’s been no care at all. No fight offers either. Their current plan: have Colby fight the winner of Mike Malott vs. Gilbert Burns at UFC Winnipeg.
“They’re trying to ice me out,” Covington declared. “It’s been fifteen months and they’re fighting in the April. So they’re not gonna be able to turn around til third quarter, fourth quarter minimum. So it’s like, what do you want me to do? You want me to sit here and just twiddle my thumbs and play with myself? Like, what the f–k am I supposed to do to earn money, dude? I wanna pay my bills, man. I have a lot of bills. So it just sucks, man.”
“I feel so disrespected by the company after everything I’ve done for them, put the company on my back for the events that I promoted, sold out Madison Square Garden, top 10 gates all time. What I did in Brazil, putting my life on the line for their company to make them money when I was getting paid peanuts, $30k when I made them tens and hundreds of millions of dollars. So it sucks. I just feel disrespected.”
Covington took aim at Hunter Campbell, who now oversees all the fight bookings at the top of UFC’s cards.
“Hunter’s hated me from the start,” Covington said. “He’s never liked to deal with me, but he’s had to deal with me because I was their biggest star in the welterweight division. So they just lost their biggest star and it sucks I can’t get fun fights. Why can’t I get another guy around my age that’s a legendary fighter that adds to my resume, a high ranking guy? Why against some un-established nobody? You just wanna build this kid out of Canada because you don’t have any Canadian stars right now. Not a lot of it makes sense.”
“It’s the most frustrating thing in the world, dude. I get stopped ten, twenty times a day every day. People are like, ‘When’s your next fight? Why aren’t you fighting?’ I’m like, ‘Bro, I have no control over if I’m fighting or not. I call Hunter every week and I’m like, ‘Dude, can I get a fight?’ ‘Hey, where’s the fight?’ ‘What’s the next matchup you want?’ He said, ‘Oh, I don’t have anything yet for you.’”
“What can I do, man? I just have to stay patient,” he concluded. “All I can do is control what I’m in control of. I just think that the UFC’s checked out, man. They got the 8 billion from Paramount. They don’t care about putting on the best exciting fights. They’re getting guaranteed money. So they’d rather stick a guy out there that’s making $10k and $10k than stick a guy out there like me who makes big money. That’s just what it is.”
“I’m just over the UFC. You know? I did my time there I might fight another fight there, wait for that winner. But after that, I don’t know. I’m just all in on Real American Freestyle.”
So is the UFC actually icing Covington out, or is this a prison of Colby’s own making? While “Chaos” insists he’s never turned down a fight offer, our sources say Covington definitely turned down a fight against Ian Machado Garry in 2024 and that the Florida resident has ruled himself out of multiple Sunshine State cards due to being picky about opponents and demanding about pay.
We’re all about fighters getting paid and, yeah, it sucks when the UFC decides to move you into the ‘fodder for up-and-comers’ matchmaking pile. But if you’re going to lie about everything all the time, how can you expect people to believe you when you claim you not only didn’t turn down Bo Nickal at the White House but never turned down any fight ever?
Still, it would be nice if the UFC were able to manage its roster better and get some of its bigger names into the cage more often. Colby Covington and Jon Jones are both tough examples to feel sorry for, but their situations reflect a larger issue with the promotion keeping its stars active and in interesting fights when the clear preference is leaning on Contender Series guys to keep costs down.
