Colby Covington and Bo Nickal had a “personal” beef going for the better part of 2025 and it seemed like it was only a matter of time before Covington and Nickal settled things on the Real American Freestyle (RAF) wrestling mats — the only place for a grudge match after Covington walked away from Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC).
But Nickal was recently defeated by reigning NCAA champion Max McEnelly as part of the RAF 12 lineup last weekend in Cleveland, which coupled with his technical knockout
loss to Reinier de Ridder at UFC Des Moines, damaged Nickal’s brand to the point where Covington is no longer interested.
Or maybe Covington was just stalling until Nickal finally lost.
“He talked a big game, but look what happens every time he’s on the world stage, he comes up short,” Covington told Submission Radio (transcribed by MMA Junkie). “My reaction is, it’s pretty hilarious. He talks a big game, but he can’t go out there and get the job done. He’s a bozo. He’s not a star. No one cares about him. You’ve got a lot of people talking the talk, but they can’t walk the walk. He quit to a Dutch grappler – a Dutch grappler. A Dutch grappler doesn’t even know how to strike, and you quit to that guy? You’re not a world beater. You’re not everything you tell the world to be. You’re a fraud. You’re irrelevant to the business world.”
Covington’s RAF stock is at an all-time high after derailing the Arman Express at RAF 11 in July.
“There’s no appeal to it, you know? He’s not undefeated,” Covington continued. “The mystique, the scary guy that they tried to build up to be this killer, you know, it’s not there anymore. He was defeated. He got beaten, and he’s a bigger guy. He weighs way more than me. He weighed in at 200 pounds. We’re not the same weight class. He doesn’t know how to do show business. He’s a clown. He’s acting all privileged, like he deserves everything, ‘Oh, I come from this. I deserve this,’ and he doesn’t want to earn it. So, you know, there’s no freebies up on the top when you’re a loser like him.”
Covington is not the only UFC fighter who thinks Nickal is just a “college bum.”
“Chaos” will return to the RAF mats when he battles former UFC welterweight champion Belal Muhammad as part of the upcoming RAF 13 lineup on Sept. 19 in Miami, Florida. Covington, now 38, is 4-0 under the RAF banner and holds the promotion’s newly-created crossover championship belt.
