{"id":481995,"date":"2026-02-15T17:38:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-15T17:38:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/481995\/"},"modified":"2026-02-15T17:38:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-15T17:38:07","slug":"bo-nickal-calls-out-colby-covington-for-wimping-out-on-middleweight-move","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/481995\/","title":{"rendered":"Bo Nickal calls out Colby Covington for \u2018wimping out\u2019 on middleweight move"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">After months of teasing a move up to middleweight, Colby Covington wants to stay at 170 for his theoretical fight on the UFC White House card. And Bo Nickal believes he\u2019s the reason for \u201cChaos\u201d suddenly switching things up.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">In January, Covington said 185 was looking like his new home following his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmamania.com\/ncaa-wrestling-news-and-results\/414107\/luke-rockhold-issues-brief-response-to-lopsided-loss-at-raf-05\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">dominant win<\/a> over middleweight Luke Rockhold at Real American Freestyle 5.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cI felt good at this weight class, and I know I\u2019d do good at 185,\u201d Covington <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmamania.com\/ncaa-wrestling-news-and-results\/414059\/colby-covington-teases-move-to-middleweight-again-after-dominant-raf-05-win-i-have-unlimited-endurance\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">said at the time.<\/a> \u201cI have unlimited endurance, so at Middleweight I\u2019d have even more of an advantage. I felt stronger than him tonight, and I know he probably weighs 20 or 30 pounds more than me. You might see me in my next fight \u2014 maybe at the White House \u2014 at Middleweight.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">But now Colby has a new target: Paddy Pimblett, a lightweight who he wants to fight at welterweight \u2014 purely for Pimblett health reasons, of course.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cHe\u2019s cutting a lot of weight to get to 155. He\u2019s like two hundred pounds. He looks like s&#8211;t. Even the doctors told him, they\u2019re like, \u2018Dude, your organs are gonna fail if you keep cutting to lightweight.\u2019 Pretty much telling him, \u2018You need to go up a weight class.\u2019 So I love that fight.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Covington <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmamania.com\/ufc-mma-rankings\/414236\/king-colby-covington-dana-white-strange-criticism-take-me-out-ufc-rankings\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">hasn\u2019t been very active<\/a> over the past few years, and seems content to sit on the sidelines unless a favorable match-up or big enough paycheck presents itself. For the White House card, he\u2019s declared his opponent needs to be a non-American.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cIt\u2019s a fight where it\u2019s an American versus a British guy,\u201d Covington said of the Pimblett fight. \u201cYeah, I don\u2019t wanna fight an American guy on the American card, on the 200th birthday of America.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cColby talks crap about me then says he wants to move to 185,\u201d Nickal said. \u201cI say okay let\u2019s fight at the White House. Now he\u2019s trying to run away. What a wimp. Man up and take your beating Colby.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Covington clearly doesn\u2019t want to fight Nickal, a three-time NCAA Division I champion whose wrestling pedigree is leaps and bounds beyond anything Colby achieved. So long as Nickal is waiting for him at middleweight, we expect Covington to stay at welterweight \u2026 and keep calling out lightweights, probably.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After months of teasing a move up to middleweight, Colby Covington wants to stay at 170 for his&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":481996,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,785,85,1396],"class_list":["post-481995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=481995"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481995\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/481996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}