Colby Covington retires from MMA to pursue wrestling at RAF

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TAMPA, FLORIDA - DECEMBER 14: Colby Covington is seen in his locker room prior to his fight during the UFC Fight Night event at Amalie Arena on December 14, 2024 in Tampa, Florida. (Photo by Mike Roach/Zuffa LLC) Colby Covington is returning to his roots. Earlier this month, Covington notified the UFC that he had retired from MMA. While not completely out of the blue, Covington is still a big name in the sport and could have continued fighting for many years; however, Covington wanted to leave the UFC so he could focus all his energy on his return to the wrestling mats at Real America Freestyle. “I’m not really retired, it’s just the red tape that I needed to open up all the matchups for Chad Bronstein and RAF,” Covington told Mike Heck of MMA Fighting. “I want to go against Arman [Tsarukyan], I want to test myself on this mat in the first sport that I started in. I started in wrestling. As a little kid, this is the sport that brought me into the UFC and gave me everything I had in the UFC. It’s wrestling. This is how I got an education. It got me a degree to go to college. “So, what I had to do to open up all these big matchups with Arman, with Marty [Kamaru Usman], potentially [Belal Muhammad], whatever you want to call it, red tape retire. But in my mind, I don’t feel like I’m retired because I would still take a fight. I still train every single day, I’m still in great shape and good health. So I don’t feel like I’m retired, but if that’s what needed to happen to get all these matchups in RAF, so be it.” The “red tape” Covington is referring to is a restriction the UFC has around its athletes competing against each other outside of the promotion. While the UFC seems to be comfortable with its fighters competing for RAF, the company has drawn the line at UFC fighters taking on other UFC fighters, making many of Covington’s most sought-after matchups impossible unless he retired from MMA. But while practicality may have been the biggest reason Covington retired from the UFC, the truth is he also enjoys RAF more than the UFC anyway. “I’m much happier now,” Covington said. “I had a lot of time reflecting after that fight, like, ‘Do I still want to do this? Is my head still in this game?’ I’ve achieved everything. I’ve already fought for a title four different times. I already fought in 7, 8, 9 different main events. So, I’m thankful for everything I’ve accomplished and everything I did in the UFC, but now I’m back to my true love and my passion, RAF. “It’s so much fun. It’s so light-hearted. You see, we’re hugging people on the stage. It’s not like that in the UFC. everybody’s like, ‘We want to kill each other!’ on stage. You see your opponent before the fight, and they’re like, ‘What’s up, bitch! I’m going to f*ck you up!’ It’s all serious. Here, it’s all love, and it’s family-friendly. I’m just so thankful to be a part of RAF.” MMA retirements are notoriously short-lived, and with Covington even acknowledging that his might not even be real, there is always the chance that the former interim UFC welterweight champion returns to the cage at least once more. But if he doesn’t and this really is the end, “Chaos” is at peace with the career he had inside the octagon. “Yeah, I’m OK with it. I’m OK with everything I’ve been able to accomplish,” Covington said. “I won a world title there. I fought many high-level fights, headlined many pay-per-views, sold millions of pay-per-views through the years, so I’ll be OK with it. I’ll have no regrets for everything that happened. Everything happens for a reason.”

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Colby Covington explains why he retired from MMA and his passion for RAF