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Colby Covington had a rare opportunity this past Saturday in Las Vegas at UFC 296. With his fight against Leon Edwards, he became one of a very few fighters in UFC history to ever fight for gold three times without ever winning a belt.
Chaos Covington’s UFC career a continuation of mentor Chael Sonnen’s
A man first recruited to MMA by former multiple time title challenger Chael Sonnen (as the broadcast pointed out just before he stepped into the Octagon), in many ways, ‘Chaos’ has seemed like a continuation of the former Team Quest talent’s career. After starting his time in MMA as a hard-nosed, hard working wrestle-grinder, Covington flipped a switch and became a loud-mouthed, brash ‘performer’. A fighter more known for his ability to rile foes outside of the cage than for the definitive nature of his victories inside it.
Just like Sonnen, that recipe proved to be a major success. At least when it came to getting chances to fight for titles. Sonnen fought Anderson Silva twice, nearly winning the first, before getting put away in the second. And followed that up with a surprise title fight opportunity against Jon Jones, where he got utterly annihilated—excepting a toe injury that nearly gave him the belt on a technicality, had he been able to see the second round.
Unfortunately, much like his collegiate wrestling career—where Sonnen always managed to do very well—he never actually found a way to grab the brass ring.
Even after he moved to Bellator, the Oregon native found himself faced with a loss to Fedor Emelianenko that stopped his Heavyweight Grand Prix hopes in their tracks.
Finally, however, with the culmination of what’s very likely Colby Covington’s final UFC title fight at UFC 296, Sonnen gets the honor of having been the man to do it first. Covington walked the path laid down before him and he did it to a T. All the trash talk, all the grinding wrestling, all the title shot opportunities and none of the gold to show for it.
Much like Sonnen, Covington will no doubt spend the next several years claiming that he’s the ‘real champ’, just like both men did while they were still contenders. They love to bluster, but the record will remain unchanged; that when they got to the peak of the mountain, the trash talk was the most offensive thing they had going for them.
Okay, maybe that’s being unfair. After all Covington is only 35 and not done yet… still time to rewrite the narrative and work back to something, maybe, possibly.
Where does Colby Covington go after UFC 296?
I’ll fully admit that it came to my surprise when the MMA Masters talent told the crowd that he feels “35-years-young” and like he wants to jump back in the cage early next year. Against who? For what stakes?
For the last four years Covington has had exactly two kinds of fights: Title shots and grudge matches. If the chance for gold is now out of reach, at least for the foreseeable future (and a lot longer than that if statistics about title challengers over the age of 35 below middleweight are to be relied upon), it has to be noted that the grudge matches aren’t really there either anymore.
Jorge Masvidal is retired, Kamaru Usman already beat him twice, Tyron Woodley is out wandering the celebrity boxing wastelands. Is Covington going to fight Belal Muhammad? Or Gilbert Burns? Is he going to face rising contenders like Shavkat Rakhmonov and Sean Brady? These are the kinds of bouts he’s been passing on for more than half a decade. It’s hard to imagine that they’d hold more attraction now.
Covington hasn’t seemed like a fighter hungry to compete and fight for the thrill of it so much as a man hunting that one ultimate piece of validation. The time he spends around fighting, the use he makes of his fame, has been more targeted as a future career on the right wing grifter circuit—teaching workshops on alpha behavior or something equally likely to prey on masculine insecurity. The idea that Covington would want to hang around combat sports and stay in the industry never really seemed to be on the horizon.
Now that the validation has escaped him, is grinding back to the top really the move?
Maybe there’s an unlikely third act to this story. A post-contendership renaissance that allows Covington on more shot at glory, ala Glover Teixeira. I can’t help feeling that’s incredibly unlikely.
The future is always uncertain, however, yet in the wake of UFC 296 it feels like Colby Covington has secured his legacy—as a career runner-up. It’s just all the more fitting that he wasn’t even the first one to do it.
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