As UFC White House looms, Colby Covington's quiet retirement is MMA's ultimate tragicomedy

It’s doubtful too many people found themselves broken up over Colby Covington’s retirement from the UFC , not with that shtick that had a hard time shticking. The UFC deleted him from the roster with a snap of its fingers on Monday, and just like that — poof — he was gone. No different from Brad Riddell and Mayra Bueno Silva, fighters who were jettisoned on the same day.

It was an awfully quiet way to step aside for anyone who’s followed Covington’s career. Though he never won a title, Colby was the UFC’s all-time leader in obnoxious moments until Sean Strickland came along. (Covington, it might be remembered, called Strickland “a pathetic excuse of a human being.

” I recall somebody on X responding to a post of that very quote with, “Colby’s nickname should be ‘The Kettle. ’” As far as repartees go, that might’ve been cleverer than anything we’d seen from the Covington playbook. ) If there’s a tragicomical element to the timing of this, it’s that Covington’s run comes to an end less than a month before the UFC holds its big presidential birthday bash at the White House .

For Covington, this was an Arcadia, his personal Super Bowl, a Mecca for the MAGA mind — it was an event specifically tailor-made for him after his yearslong devotion to Donald Trump . Knowing Covington’s style, he himself might’ve called it a “money shot moment” or perhaps bragged about doing his camp at Mar-a-Lago, who the hell knows. Thing is, we’ll never find out.