Colby Covington says the desire to go all-in on his passion for wrestling is what led to his UFC retirement.
News surfaced last week that former UFC interim welterweight champion Covington (17-5 MMA, 12-5 UFC) had informed the promotion of his retirement from MMA competition.
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Covington hadn’t spoken publicly about the situation, but on Wednesday confirmed the reporting and said the decision was rooted in his desire to fully focus on Real American Freestyle. He meets Chris Weidman in Saturday’s RAF 09 co-main event in Dallas, his third appearance for the promotion.
“I had a good meeting with Hunter (Campbell), and we just talked about the future, and we talked about everything that’s been done and all the business we’ve done, and it was a productive meeting,” Covington told “The Ariel Helwani Show” on Wednesday. “I just said that I’m very thankful with everything the UFC has allowed me to do in my life and all the blessings I’ve received from them, but this is the next step in my combat sports career, is to do wrestling full time, my first true love and passion. I started wrestling when I was in diapers and was a little kid. Now I can get back to doing what I love the most, and that’s wrestling. This was my first love.
“I didn’t need one of these crazy retirement packages and, ‘Oh, this is my life retirement package. Look at me and look what I did.’ I didn’t need that. I wasn’t about that. I’m thankful to all the fans. I’m thankful to the great journalists, and I’m just moving on to bigger and better things.”
Although the UFC has allowed many of its athletes to compete for RAF while still being active fighters, Covington said there’s a policy against pairing names together that could potentially compete inside the octagon.
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Covington wants to share the wrestling mats with the likes of Kamaru Usman, Khamzat Chimaev, Arman Tsarukyan, Bo Nickal and more, and giving the UFC this notice turns some of those options into real possibilities.
With complete determination to become a face of the RAF brand, Covington said he can’t give a definitive answer about whether his retirement is permanent. If he fights again in MMA, though, he said it will be with the UFC.
“I wasn’t let go,” Covington said. “I’m still a UFC fighter. I’ll always be a UFC fighter. If I come back to fight again, it will be in the UFC. … It’s 50-50. I don’t think I have (fought my last MMA fight) because I have a lot left in the tank. I know there’s a lot of good miles still left on the tread, but I don’t know. I can’t predict the future. Only God knows that. I trust God’s plan, and I’m just going to keep following on the journey the way he intended me to go.”
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Colby Covington explains UFC retirement, ’50-50′ on future return
