Colby Covington and the Blurry Lines Between Truth and Fiction in the World's Most Real Sport
After sharing the cage together for ten rounds, Colby Covington clearly believed he owed UFC welterweight champion Kamaru Usman a smidgen of truth, a thimbleful of sincerity amidst an ocean of bullshit and bravado.
The battle was valiantly fought but the war lost. Usman was marginally better in all areas, too quick and powerful on his feet and too adept on the ground for Covington to do more than impress the audience with his grit and gumption in a losing effort. So the challenger did what trash-talking losers have done since time immemorial—he tried to make it right with a display of deference and respect.
Leaning in, either an attempt at intimacy or to avoid the ever-present cameras, Covington told his arch-rival the very personal talk had been all business. That the cheap shots, low blows, and attacks on both the living and the dead had been worth it in the pursuit of giant sacks of money.
For long-time fans it was reminiscent of the famous battles between Ken Shamrock and Tito Ortiz. The back-and-forth between the two Hall-of-Famers had helped rescue the UFC with its pro wrestling inspired theatricism.
“Ken came from WWE and he knew how to talk,” Ortiz told me. “He knew how to get people riled up. And then you had me—I was pretty much a smart ass. I was a brash kid from Huntington Beach and I just laughed at the guy. He was this tough legend and I just laughed in his face. People wanted to see what would happen. The baddest man on the planet versus the champ.”
When it was over, a battered Shamrock attempted to embrace Ortiz with a similar message.
“We made a lot of money together.”
In the end, there are only two goals when you enter into the morally questionable world of prize fighting. First, and perhaps foremost, is proving yourself superior to the man across the cage from you. That establishment of dominance is the heart of the enterprise and central to both career advancement and maintaining consciousness.
Making money is a close second. After all, it’s right there in the name. Fighting for pride or survival is the domain of beasts and savages. It’s fighting for money that allows us to overlook the barbarism of it all, to identify the combatants as fully human after all.
In the pursuit of money, Covington has created an elaborate character, part right-wing podcaster, part-third rate Conor McGregor. The entire thing is built on the edifice created by the sport’s original blowhard Chael P. Sonnen.
But while Sonnen managed to convey a wink and maintain a sardonic grin even while delivering the most reprehensible trash talk (managing to build a post-fighting career as a media pundit in the process) there’s a nastier edge to Covington’s best work.
In a way, that makes him the perfect character for this time and place. “Colby Covington,” the construct, is a rabid Trump supporter rarely seen without MAGA-inspired gear of some kind. Such is the modern world, consistent praise brought him right into the President’s orbit, earning regular attention and shout outs from the most powerful figure in the political world.
No one loves to hate him the way they did Sonnen or Floyd Mayweather. They just love him or hate him. There are no fence sitters here.
Covington, like so many of us, noticed the ever-growing lines dividing different sects of Americans and saw, not a tragedy, but an opportunity. He leapt into the culture wars without ever looking down to see if there was a safe-landing zone, in the process turning himself into a fighter the world couldn’t help but pay attention to.
Having briefly removed his mask, Covington was back into character by the time he’d arrived for the post-fight press, talking shit about his former team and rebuilding the protective walls of artifice he’s long hidden behind.
Covington had acquited himself well in the Octagon, pushing the champion into the fifth round for the second time and earning his respect in the process.
“As a competitor I respect him – that’s the next best guy in the division,” Usman told reporters at the UFC 268 post-fight news conference. “This guy’s tough as nails. He’s very, very tough…there’s always going to be the one guy that can push you. He is that guy. As much of him outside the octagon as most people don’t like, myself included, you have to respect him as a competitor.”
What’s next is unclear. Like Trump himself, Covington’s act doesn’t work as well in the face of devastating, if valiant, loss. His is a posture best suited for winners—and no amount of bluster can prop up a fighter who can’t get it done inside the cage.
Jonathan Snowden is the author of Shamrock: The World’s Most Dangerous Man