Jason Burgos
It seems that Colby Covington has serious regrets about stumping for pal Donald Trump during the 2024 Presidential Election.
Covington’s rise into a main event star in the UFC was unexpected. The American didn’t have highlight reel knockout power or nasty submission skills. Instead, his success was built around a suffocating wrestling game matched with a high-output striking style. It isn’t a fighting approach that the company gets behind and promotes.
However, he thrust his name into notoriety with a bold and questionable style of fight promotion. He then further elevated his profile in the sport when he made a hard push to become President Trump’s favorite UFC fighter during his first-term in office. The effort was successful, and the links to Trump helped make him a star in mixed martial arts.
Due to the friendship that developed from Covington’s efforts, when Trump ran for a second term as President, the one-time interim welterweight champion took to the campaign trail to support the Republican candidate. However, it looks like “Chaos” regrets using his limited time as an elite athlete on campaigning in 2024 then fighting.
Colby Covington claims he spent a year campaigning for President Trump
“I gave up a year of my career. I was on the campaign trail in a different state almost every week, and I wasn’t training. It’s why I should have never taken the [Joaquim] Buckley fight, because I hadn’t been in a gym in six months. I was in all these swing states trying to win the election for America,” he told Bloody Elbow this week.
“My focus wasn’t on the UFC. It was on America… I did give up that time, and I wasn’t training, and it was honestly career suicide for me to go fight at that time, but I [thought] he was such a bum and couldn’t do anything to me even with no training camp,” he added. “It sucks I didn’t get rewarded. I thought loyalty would be rewarded. The UFC didn’t care.”
While it doesn’t seem like he regrets being a supporter of President Trump or a friend, he clearly wishes he hadn’t put so much effort into helping him win the 2024 Presidential Election. If he did waste a year on the trail, it was a wasted year in a time when he is now well removed from his prime.
Covington was also surprisingly left off the June card of the UFC event set to take place on the lawn of the White House. Something that shocked many since it seemed like he was a favorite fighter of the President. He is 2-4 in his last six and has been far more active with Real American Freestyle wrestling in the last year than in the UFC.
