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An undated picture of\u00a0UFC\u2019s most polarising welterweights of the past decade\u00a0Colby Covington.\u00a0\u2014 Reuters<\/p>\n
One of the UFC\u2019s most polarising welterweights of the past decade Colby Covington has informed the promotion of his decision to retire, UFC officials confirmed on Monday.<\/p>\n
Covington, 38, has not publicly addressed his retirement.<\/p>\n
Fighting out of South Florida, Covington won the UFC interim welterweight championship in June 2018, later stripped of the title due to inactivity. <\/p>\n
He first gained major attention in October 2017 after insulting Brazilians following victory over Demian Maia in S\u00e3o Paulo.<\/p>\n
He went on to build one of the UFC\u2019s most notorious \u201cheel\u201d personas, driven by rivalries with Kamaru Usman, Tyron Woodley and Jorge Masvidal.<\/p>\n
A former Division I All-American wrestler at Oregon State University, Covington also became known for his outspoken support of right-wing politics, and in 2018 became the first UFC interim champion to visit a sitting US president in the Oval Office, taking his belt to the White House during Donald Trump\u2019s first term.<\/p>\n
Earlier this year, Covington said he was stepping away from politics, describing it as a ‘dirty game’.<\/p>\n
His feud with Masvidal, once a friend and roommate, escalated beyond the Octagon after Masvidal assaulted him in 2022 in Miami. <\/p>\n
Covington pressed charges and later filed a civil lawsuit seeking more than $50,000 in damages.<\/p>\n
Inside the cage, Covington recorded notable wins over Rafael dos Anjos and Robbie Lawler, and pushed Kamaru Usman in a gruelling 2019 title fight, losing via fifth-round TKO.<\/p>\n
He ended his career with a 2-4 record in his last six bouts, with his final UFC appearance coming in December 2024, when he suffered a TKO defeat to Joaquin Buckley.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An undated picture of\u00a0UFC\u2019s most polarising welterweights of the past decade\u00a0Colby Covington.\u00a0\u2014 Reuters One of the UFC\u2019s most…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":680761,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,328306,56533,107252,786,785,85,787],"class_list":["post-680760","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-colby","tag-colby-covington","tag-covington","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680760","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=680760"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680760\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/680761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=680760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=680760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=680760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}