Colby Covington is not letting Ian Machado Garry or Bo Nickal breathe after a rough couple of weeks. The old Covington-Garry beef got another shove after Garry failed to take the welterweight title from Islam Makhachev at UFC 330, while Nickal’s wrestling aura took damage at RAF 12. Covington heard the noise, found a microphone, and did exactly what you would expect.
During a new Submission Radio interview, Covington said he did not spend much energy watching Garry try to dethrone Makhachev. That did not stop him from unloading on the Irish contender, who has already been publicly criticized by Dana White for not pushing harder late in that title fight.
Watch Covington’s Submission Radio interview below.
“I didn’t really pay attention, so I didn’t really care about it. But the one thing fitting that I did see is now, you know, the wife got to sit in a corner and watch him get dogged out for once. So, at least the roles got reversed for once. You know, the world got to see that he was exposed as a cuck.”
Covington continued the same attack when asked about facing Garry in RAF or another grappling event.
“I don’t know if I want to roll around with this guy. He’s done some weird things in the bedroom. The world knows he’s a cuck. He’s just got some beta tendencies that he’s showing to the world.”
He then tied the insult back to White’s criticism of Garry’s performance.
“He’s being criticized heavily by Dana for the hugging and just the weird nature that he has out there when he’s supposed to be fighting another man. So, I don’t know if I want to roll around with a guy like that.”
Asked whether he would welcome Garry into RAF or another submission-grappling setting to settle their beef, Covington wanted no part of that particular mat date. He told the show, “I don’t know if I want to roll around with this guy,” then leaned back into his usual insult-comic routine while pointing at Garry’s performance against Makhachev.
Covington Says The Nickal Aura Took A Hit At RAF 12
Covington was not done there. The former UFC interim welterweight champion also went after Bo Nickal, whose decorated wrestling background has been tied to Covington before, including Nickal previously calling Covington a liar over an alleged fight offer. Nickal remains unbeaten in UFC MMA, but his 3-2 RAF 12 loss to Max McEnelly gave Covington a fresh opening, and he jumped through it with both elbows out.
“He talked a big game, but look what happens every time he’s on the world stage. You know, he comes up short. So, my reaction is pretty hilarious. You know, he talks a big game, but he can’t go out there and get the job done.”
Covington went further, dismissing Nickal’s star power and the reputation built around him.
“He’s a bozo. He’s not a star. No one cares about him. You got a lot of people talking the talk, but they can’t walk the walk.”
Asked whether their paths could still cross, Covington said the loss removed the selling point.
“There’s no appeal to it. He’s not undefeated. The mystique, the scary guy that they tried to build up to be this killer, it’s not there anymore. He was defeated. He got beaten.”
He also pointed to their size difference.
“He weighs way more than me. He weighed in at 200 pounds. We’re not the same weight class. I’m around the 180-pound division, not the 200-pound division.”
Covington said the idea of facing Nickal has lost juice because Nickal is no longer undefeated in every lane fans can point to. “The mystique, the scary guy that they tried to build up to be this killer, you know, it’s not there anymore,” Covington said, adding that Nickal’s size also makes the matchup less appealing to him.
That is classic Covington math. A rival loses once, and suddenly the whole sales pitch gets thrown in the dumpster. Still, there is a real fight-sports wrinkle here. Covington and Nickal have already traded public shots over weight and matchmaking, including Covington telling Nickal to cut to 170 pounds if he wanted that fight.
Garry’s UFC 330 rebound pitch and Nickal’s RAF reset now sit in the same messy bucket, where every rival with a camera nearby gets to take a swing. The funny part is that Covington also gave Tyron Woodley credit later in the interview after Woodley’s comeback win over Joaquin Buckley at RAF 12. So yes, there was one compliment hiding inside the chaos. It just took a lot of shrapnel aimed at Garry and Nickal to get there.
