Former interim welterweight champion Colby Covington is still stewing over his TKO loss to Joaquin Buckley weeks after the Dec. 14 event.
Covington stepped in to face Joaquin Buckley in the UFC on ESPN 63 main event when the fight promotion opted to place Buckley’ original opponent, Ian Machado Garry, against Shavkat Rakhmonov instead. It had been a year since Covington had fought, losing to Leon Edwards at UFC 296 in December 2023.
The fight didn’t go Covington’s way. Buckley fended off takedown attempts and battered Covington with punches. The fight was stopped late in the third round due to a nasty laceration above Covington’s right eye. “Chaos” believes the fight was stopped early and that he would have finished Buckley had the fight gone on.
“The fight, you know, we were just getting warmed up.” Colby Covington said on his YouTube channel. “Everyone knows I’m a fourth and fifth-round fighter, I’m just getting started getting into those championship rounds. I could’ve finished him in that fourth and fifth round, he was breathing heavy. He didn’t have much more to offer, he wasn’t going to have much volume in those last rounds.”
“It was a close competitive fight, he didn’t outclass me, he didn’t drop me, he didn’t really hurt me,” Covington continued. “There was a little cut that happened, and I rewatched it back. It was like minute two, and it was like a headbutt right off his hip or something. But, it wasn’t a punch… It’s unfortunate that DEI doctor stopped the fight early. I thought it was just getting started, and there was a lot more that needed to be settled in there.”
