I love a great villain, and Colby Covington has always been at his best when he’s the one picking the fight. That’s what makes this week so strange. The guy RAF just crowned as the best crossover grappler on its roster is now, according to Bo Nickal, the guy who keeps saying no.
Nickal didn’t tiptoe. In a clip Ariel Helwani posted on X on Monday, he said flatly, “I don’t think he’ll ever wrestle me,” and he called the whole Covington tease a gimmick. By Nickal’s account, he first offered to wrestle Covington at 190 and Covington passed. Then he offered to come down to 185, telling him, “I’ll make 185. I don’t care. I’ll deplete myself and make 185 and still wrestle you.” As far as Nickal is concerned, the answer didn’t change.
I’ll be fair here. Everything about Covington refusing comes from Nickal’s side, and I haven’t seen Covington’s response in anything published so far. But Nickal’s offer is out in public now, and every day it sits there without a counteroffer makes it look worse for Colby.
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The No. 1 Spot Comes With a Bill
The timing is brutal. The same Monday Nickal went off, RAF dropped its inaugural crossover rankings, and MMA Fighting reported that Covington sits at No. 1. He’s 5-0 in the promotion, holds the cruiserweight crossover title, and has wins over Arman Tsarukyan, Dillon Danis, Belal Muhammad, Chris Weidman and Luke Rockhold. Three former UFC champs and a guy currently ranked third. That’s a real run, and I’m not going to pretend otherwise.
Here’s my problem. When you’re No. 1, you don’t get to choose the easy line. You take the challenger who’s volunteering to cut weight to get to you. Weight was the only excuse that ever made sense, and Nickal took it off the table himself. He went from 190 to 185 and basically told Covington to name the scale. If a champion turns that down, he’s protecting a belt, and I can’t stand champions who play it safe.
The rankings make it funnier. Nickal’s name isn’t among the 20 RAF listed. You know whose is? Joe Pyfer, at No. 17. That’s the same Joe Pyfer Nickal is headlining a UFC Cleveland card against in February after their fight got moved off UFC 335, as Spinnin Backfist reported on Friday. So the promotion has room for Nickal’s next UFC opponent on its list but no room for Nickal in its main title picture. MiddleEasy noted Nickal questioning exactly that, where he fits in RAF’s crossover structure, while he keeps his UFC career as the priority.
RAF Can Book Big Fights When It Wants To
The part of Nickal’s rant I’d underline twice is about the promotion. He said the Covington match “keeps getting dangled in front of me,” with the pitch being that if he does more matches, he’ll eventually get his shot. Then he said the only thing frustrating him about RAF is that “they won’t make Colby wrestle me.”
That’s a carrot on a stick, and fans have watched promotions run this play forever. Keep the big match in the window, sell everything around it, never actually open the door.
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And don’t tell me RAF can’t make big matchups happen. In August at RAF 12, Henry Cejudo pinned Merab Dvalishvili in 36 seconds to win the lightweight crossover belt, per MMA Fighting. Two former UFC champs, on the mat, for a title. This Friday at RAF 14 in Las Vegas, Tsarukyan meets Danis for the inaugural middleweight crossover title, and Khamzat Chimaev faces Robbie Lawler in the co-main. That’s an aggressive booking office. So if Nickal vs. Covington isn’t happening, it’s because somebody decided it isn’t.
Nickal also isn’t some guy with nothing to do, begging for attention. He stopped Kyle Daukaus this summer at UFC Freedom 250 at the White House, and he’s got Pyfer on deck as a UFC headliner. He’s carving out space in a busy schedule to chase this match, and he’s offering to suffer on the scale to do it. That’s a fighter calling his shot. “Give me Colby. I’m gonna smash him and destroy him,” he said, and then offered to wrestle whoever RAF wants at 190 crossover afterward. He even handed the promotion its next booking.
Covington built a whole persona on being the guy who says your name first. The cruiserweight crossover champ now has a challenger who’s saying his, loudly, while offering to meet him two weight checkpoints down. If Colby wants to keep that No. 1 next to his name, he can start by picking up the phone.
RAF 14 goes off Friday, Oct. 23, in Las Vegas with a brand-new middleweight belt on the line, and neither Nickal nor Covington is on it. That’s a missed opportunity RAF owns.
