Photo by Josh Hedges/Zuffa LLC/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images
”Covington’s next in line,” Dana White said. “He stepped up and took this Lawler fight.”
Former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) interim welterweight champion, Colby Covington, may be one of the most insufferable, obnoxious, and immature headliners to ever step foot inside the Octagon. I think we can all agree on that.
We should also be in agreement that “Chaos” is very, very good at his job. Not only has Covington won seven straight fights with a pair of third-round finishes, he also toppled two former champions along the way, one of which came in a short-notice fight to save the UFC Newark main event.
Most jobs pay overtime when you’re forced to come in on your day off, but it sounds like UFC is just dangling carrots at this point with no intention of letting anyone eat. I doubt that comes as breaking news to any of the killers and eaters in the prize-fighting industry.
And explains why fighters have tried to take action against the billion-dollar juggernaut.
“That’s how UFC does business, they do the bully tactics,” Covington told BJPenn.com. “They do the slave labor negotiations. It’s sick man. They don’t want to pay any of the fighters because they want everybody to be poor, so they keep back coming back and fighting all the time, and fighting six times a year.”
Fans who think fighters like Covington should just shut up and fight because they already signed a contract for a certain amount of money are the same fans who expect their own employers to give them a raise every year simply because they’ve put in the time.
“The UFC always makes promises, they’ve made me so many promises,” Covington said. “‘Oh, do this and we’ll give you a favor here. We’ll throw you a bone next time.’ They never end up throwing that bone back, man. They just use you even more next time. So it’s just… I’m not going to be played for a fool anymore, man. They want to do business like that, then they’re not going to get any business. That’s that.”
If you don’t care what happens to Covington because UFC 244 now has a “Bad Mother Fucker” main event then you’re a sucker because UFC has conned you into giving them your pay-per-view (PPV) money while also turning you against its fighters, who often times have no one to support them when it comes to negotiating a new contract.
I’m sure it feels something like this.
“The UFC still doesn’t do good for me,” Covington said. “I make them millions and millions and they just continue to just pocket all that money, and they don’t want to pay me a fraction — not even 5% of any of that money. It’s ridiculous how they can pocket 95, 98% and not give the fighters anymore than the 2, 3%.”
That Kamaru Usman title shot, meanwhile, continues to fade from view.
I know most fans hate Covington and he brings that hate upon himself. But he’s also done an exceptional job of keeping himself in the headlines for the last two years and even if you’re tuning in to watch him get his ass beat, you’re still tuning in.
Surely there’s enough of that $7 billion to go around.