Colby Covington’s relationship with the UFC in recent years has been tumultuous.
It’s been about 18 months since Covington’s most recent UFC fight, a one-sided doctor stoppage loss to Joaquin Buckley (watch here). Dating back to 2020, “Chaos” has only fought once per year at most, maintaining his high ranking despite relatively few notable wins. Therefore, it wasn’t exactly surprising when Covington quietly retired a couple weeks ago.
Aside from politics and beer, what’s left for Covington? He’s been
very active competing for upstart promotion Real American Freestyle (RAF), which commonly hosts UFC stars and top world wrestling talent. Competing in RAF is his new focus, but he’s not negative about how his UFC career ended.
“I had a good meeting with Hunter (Campbell), and we just talked about the future, and we talked about everything that’s been done and all the business we’ve done, and it was a productive meeting,” Covington told Ariel Helwani (via MMA Junkie). “I just said that I’m very thankful with everything the UFC has allowed me to do in my life and all the blessings I’ve received from them, but this is the next step in my combat sports career, is to do wrestling full time, my first true love and passion. I started wrestling when I was in diapers and was a little kid. Now I can get back to doing what I love the most, and that’s wrestling. This was my first love.
“I didn’t need one of these crazy retirement packages and, ‘Oh, this is my life retirement package. Look at me and look what I did.’ I didn’t need that. I wasn’t about that. I’m thankful to all the fans. I’m thankful to the great journalists, and I’m just moving on to bigger and better things.”
One of the issues with Covington’s RAF career is that active UFC fighters cannot wrestle one another for that promotion. Covington has his eye on matchups with opponents like Khamzat Chimaev, Kamaru Usman, and Arman Tsarukyan that would not be possible while considered a current UFC fighter. Now that he’s retired, those matchups could theoretically be booked sooner than later.
That said, Covington refuses to rule out an MMA comeback. If he does fight again, it will be inside the Octagon.
“I wasn’t let go,” Covington said. “I’m still a UFC fighter. I’ll always be a UFC fighter. If I come back to fight again, it will be in the UFC. … It’s 50-50. I don’t think I have (fought my last MMA fight) because I have a lot left in the tank. I know there’s a lot of good miles still left on the tread, but I don’t know. I can’t predict the future. Only God knows that. I trust God’s plan, and I’m just going to keep following on the journey the way he intended me to go.”
Covington returns to action opposite former UFC Middleweight champion Chris Weidman this weekend (Sat., May 30, 2026) inside College Park Center in Arlington, Texas at RAF 09.
