Colby Covington has built a career out of saying the rudest possible thing into the nearest microphone, so when he calls somebody a bum, it usually tells you more about the guy holding the mic. This time it doesn’t. In a sit-down with Ozoon, the former interim welterweight champ took aim at Zuffa Boxing and the money it’s throwing at boxers, and buried under the trash talk is the most damaging argument anyone has made about UFC pay in a while.
He opened the way only Colby could:
“I don’t like it at all. It’s just tough. Ever since they got into the boxing space with Zuffa Boxing, it just was like a big slap in the face to us UFC fighters. Why are you going to pay this bum Conor Benn $15 million? Who the [expletive] is Conor Benn? Like, no one knows who that is. He’s a nobody. And he quit in his fight.”
He kept going, saying Benn “literally just went out there to collect a paycheck and just quit” and was done in three or four rounds against Ryan Garcia, who Covington dismissed as “nothing special” because Rolly Romero beat him up the fight before. That’s a lot of shots at a lot of boxers in one breath, and I’d pay real money to watch Covington say any of it to Benn’s face at a press conference.
The $15 Million Problem
Forget the insults for a second and look at the number Covington put out there. For years, the company line on fighter pay has boiled down to this: you get what your market value says you get. Draw eyeballs, sell pay-per-views, and the money follows.
Fine. Then what does it mean when the same Zuffa umbrella, by Covington’s account, hands $15 million to a boxer he says quit? It means the company sets the market. The checkbook was there all along. Zuffa decides who gets to be worth eight figures, and it apparently picked a guy from the other sport.
That’s why Covington’s complaint lands harder than the usual pay gripe. He isn’t comparing the UFC to some rival league with different economics. He’s comparing UFC fighters to the people being paid by their own boss’s new side project. You can’t tell a ranked welterweight that the money just isn’t there when the money is visibly sitting in the boxing division’s bank account.
The Risk Argument Is the Weaker One
Covington’s second point was about danger, and it’s where he got the most fired up:
“We’re using elbows, we’re using knees, we’re using shins, we’re using fists, we’re using takedowns. I mean, it’s no holds barred, you know? It’s like a street fight, it’s not limited fighting with 12 ounce boxing gloves. We’re using four ounce gloves and we’re going in there to kill each other.”
He also said flatly, “UFC, we take the biggest risk.” Emotionally, I’m with him. Four-ounce gloves and elbows on the ground are a different kind of night at the office. But risk has never set a price in prizefighting. Plenty of guys on the prelims take brutal punishment for small checks. Draw sets the price. Which loops right back to the Benn point: if the company is paying for names, then the UFC, the most powerful star-making machine in combat sports, can build names and pay them. That’s the argument with teeth.
Strickland Is the Test Case
Covington tied all of this to Sean Strickland, and that’s where it gets real. Strickland is the reigning middleweight champion after taking the belt from Khamzat Chimaev. He’s said he’s been pressured to sign an extension, and he went public with what he wants to be paid as champ. The result, per the reports, is that talks for a title fight with Nassourdine Imavov have stalled.
Covington said he gets where fighters like Strickland are coming from, and honestly, this is the kind of standoff I want more of. I can’t stand champions who play it safe, and playing it safe in contract talks counts. Strickland beat the scariest man in the division and immediately put a number on the table instead of signing whatever got slid across the desk. That’s a fighter calling his shot. If market value is the rule, a guy who dethroned Chimaev is about as valuable as a middleweight gets.
The funniest part of this whole thing is the messenger. Covington, the sport’s most committed heel, is out here sounding like a union rep. Great villains are at their best when they’re secretly right, and he’s secretly right here. The trash talk about Benn and Garcia is pure Colby. The underlying math belongs to every fighter on the roster.
For now, the middleweight title fight with Imavov sits in limbo, and the UFC’s next offer to Strickland will tell us whether “market value” is a real standard or a line the company only uses when it saves them money. Covington just gave every fighter in the building a $15 million reason to ask.
