{"id":336996,"date":"2026-05-19T04:16:55","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T22:46:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/?p=336996"},"modified":"2026-05-19T04:16:55","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T22:46:55","slug":"ex-interim-ufc-welterweight-champion-colby-covington-retires-from-mma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/2026\/05\/19\/ex-interim-ufc-welterweight-champion-colby-covington-retires-from-mma\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-interim UFC welterweight champion Colby Covington retires from MMA"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"article-3807879\">\n<p>Some of the polarizing careers in UFC welterweight history has officially come to a detailed. Colby Covington, the previous interim UFC welterweight champion, has retired from mixed martial arts competition. On Monday, UFC officials quietly updated his status from \u201cenergetic\u201d to \u201cretired\u201d on the promotion&#8217;s official website, a <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/UFCRosterWatch\/status\/2056460384899391961?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">change first flagged<\/a> by the algorithmic X account UFC Roster Tracker.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">\ud83d\udea8 Colby Covington has retired from MMA, based on the UFC\u2019s website \ud83d\ude33 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/FurYCRQ2IA\">pic.twitter.com\/FurYCRQ2IA<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 ACD MMA (@acdmma_) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/acdmma_\/status\/2056481798197014833?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">May 18, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Covington, 38, compiled a 12-5 record across 17 fights contained in the Octagon and built a resume that few welterweights in promotional history can match. He notched signature victories over former champion Rafael dos Anjos, Robbie Lawler, Tyron Woodley, and Jorge Masvidal, names that represent among the most achieved fighters the 170-pound division has ever produced. He also took home interim welterweight gold to cement his status as probably the greatest talents of his generation.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Top Finishes: Colby Covington\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/hQeyiAEI4FY?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Despite his great success, nonetheless, he was never capable of win the undisputed championship. Covington went 0-3 in title fights, falling to Kamaru Usman twice and Leon Edwards once, three heartbreaking defeats that defined a profession perpetually knocking on the game&#8217;s ultimate door without ever walking through it.<\/p>\n<p>In recent times, Covington had grown increasingly frustrated with the UFC. He voiced public displeasure over an absence of meaningful fight offers and notably took exception to being left off the upcoming UFC Freedom 250 card scheduled for June 14 on the White House, an event that ought to have been tailor-made for a fighter who loudly aligned himself with President Donald Trump and embraced a full MAGA persona more aggressively than some other athlete in MMA history.<\/p>\n<p>His retirement doesn&#8217;t mean Covington is completed competing entirely. He&#8217;s scheduled to wrestle Chris Weidman on May 30 at RAF 9 in Arlington, Texas, having already made two appearances for the wrestling promotion since December 2023.<\/p>\n<p>Love him or detest him, and most of the people selected one or the opposite, Colby Covington moved the needle, sold fights, and proved he belonged among the many welterweight elite. The game is not going to soon forget him.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Some of the polarizing careers in UFC welterweight history has officially come to a detailed.  Colby Covington, the previous interim UFC welterweight champion, has retired from mixed martial arts competition.  On Monday, UFC officials quietly updated his status from &#8220;energetic&#8221; to &#8220;retired&#8221; on the promotion&#8217;s official website, a change first flagged by the algorithmic X account UFC Roster Tracker.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><br \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Some of the polarizing careers in UFC welterweight history has officially come to a detailed. Colby Covington, the previous interim UFC welterweight champion, has retired from mixed martial arts competition. On Monday, UFC officials quietly updated his status from \u201cenergetic\u201d to \u201cretired\u201d on the promotion&#8217;s official website, a change first flagged by the algorithmic X [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":336997,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21048],"tags":[1470,8922,8923,51880,7232,5354,3928,10774],"class_list":["post-336996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mma","tag-champion","tag-colby","tag-covington","tag-exinterim","tag-mma","tag-retires","tag-ufc","tag-welterweight"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=336996"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336996\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":336999,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336996\/revisions\/336999"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/336997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=336996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=336996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=336996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}