Khamzat Chimaev has finally lost a UFC fight, and Colby Covington wasted no time telling everyone he saw it coming. Sportskeeda carried Covington’s verdict that he wasn’t surprised Chimaev came up short against Sean Strickland, along with the line “He doesn’t really have that dog.” NDTV Sports went with the harsher word from the same round of comments. Covington called Chimaev a “quitter.”
I’m not buying it, at least not in the form it was delivered.
A loss is a result. Calling someone a quitter is a claim about what happens inside a fighter’s head when the fight turns against him, and that kind of claim needs evidence you can point to on tape. Give me the round. Give me the time on the clock. Give me the position he was in when he stopped trying. Did he stop shooting after a stuffed double? Did he turtle and wait for the referee? Did he walk back to his stool with his eyes already somewhere else? None of that shows up in Covington’s comments as they’ve been reported. What shows up is a label, and a label is the cheapest thing in this sport.
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How You Actually Measure Heart
I judge grit the way I judge a wrestler’s chain. The first shot tells you nothing. The second and third tell you everything. A fighter with real fight in him gets his single leg stuffed, comes up, changes levels again and works a trip off the same grip. Between rounds he listens to his corner and walks out with a different plan, whether that means a new jab angle or a different entry or a decision to stop chasing the knockout and grind. The fighters I love most are the ones who make those adjustments while they’re losing, because that’s the only moment the adjustment costs them something.
I’m not going to invent a play-by-play of Chimaev’s loss here. The coverage of Covington’s remarks doesn’t lay one out, and Covington’s version, as reported, doesn’t either. That’s exactly my complaint. If Chimaev really folded, there’s a specific sequence in that fight where he folded, and anyone accusing him of it should be able to name it. “That dog” is a vibe. Vibes don’t score rounds.
I’ll grant Covington one thing. A first loss is when people get to ask questions they were too scared to ask before, because an unbeaten record has a way of making everyone polite. Chimaev’s aura was built on running through people, and the moment that stops, the aura is open season. Fair enough. But questioning a fighter’s ceiling is one argument. Questioning his character is a different one, and Covington picked the one that’s easier to say and harder to prove.
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The Belt Might Walk Out the Door
The stranger part of the week has nothing to do with Chimaev’s heart and everything to do with the man who beat him. Strickland is holding a belt and talking like a guy with one foot out the door. In a clip posted by Championship Rounds, Strickland said: “Unless things change with the UFC thing I’m kinda over it. Contemplating just going to 205, knocking out my contract and scrapping with Jake Paul.”
Paul obliged. He posted a wish list of opponents on X that included Canelo Alvarez, Francis Ngannou, Conor McGregor and Strickland, then asked Strickland directly whether he was out of contract and told him to have his promoter call MVP. Strickland answered on X that he hadn’t decided whether to blow up his deal, adding, “I gotta say man putting hands on you sounds way better than the UFC right now.....”
Then Nassourdine Imavov ran into Strickland in Las Vegas, and per Championship Rounds the exchange got heated. “What is your problem? You not sign the contract?” Imavov asked. Strickland’s reply was “Say what?” Imavov kept pressing: “Money? I have money, I give.”
So the middleweight title picture right now looks like this. The champion is musing about a move to 205 and a boxing payday. A contender is chasing him through Vegas asking why he hasn’t signed. And the guy Covington wants us to write off is sitting on his first loss with no obvious path back to the man who handed it to him. If Strickland vacates, Chimaev never gets the rematch that would actually answer Covington’s question.
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That’s the part that annoys me most. The only real test of whether Chimaev has the dog Covington says he’s missing is what he does next: whether he comes back with changes, whether he fights through the rough patch next time instead of around it. That test might now happen against someone other than Strickland, which makes the whole debate muddier than it needs to be.
Until someone shows me the exact exchange where Chimaev quit, I’m treating Covington’s verdict as a bumper sticker. Show me the moment, Colby.
