Colby Covington: biography
Colby “Chaos” Covington is a mixed style fighter, who started his professional career in MMA in the welterweight category in 2012. The native city of the fighter is Clovis, located in California. He was born there on February 22, 1988. “Chaos” is known for participating in tournaments of the UFC.
He owned the title of UFC interim welterweight champion. According to Colby’s Twitter, he is the UFC Welterweight King, American Top Team‘s member and the first UFC Champion ever invited to the White House. His net worth is about $2 million.
Childhood and youth
Colby was born in 1988 in a small town Clovis, which population was about 100,000 people. There is very few information about the childhood of Colby and his family. The only known is that at the age of 11 he moved to Springfield, Oregon. After high school, he decided to go junior college wrestle at Iowa Central. It was the right choice, according to Colby. The environment and the people around him changed his future. He participated in different tournaments.
During college, he roomed with Joe Soto and Jon Jones, who is the current UFC light heavyweight champion. Colby started training with Joe and Jon and got a dream to become the best professional fighter of the world, although as a child he wanted to be in the Olympics. Then Colby returned to Oregon and entered Oregon State University. He took part in Pac-10 championship, which he won twice in 2010 and 2011. He graduated in 2011 and earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology.
Mixed Martial Arts Career
Being in Oregon Colby became interested in MMA. For some time he was a member of the local amateur MMA club but decided to leave Oregon and to go to the Sunshine State. He settled down in Coconut Creek, Florida. There he started training with professionals of American Top Team. In 2012 Colby spent three fights and won all of them. In 2013 he became the only American who won the FILA No-Gi Grappling World Championship without a single point being scored against him.
That achievement made him famous all over the country. In 2013 Covington fought against “The Fresh Prince of Kendall” Caceres. He also won that duel. But he was very disappointed by his performances and actions. Colby felt that didn’t demonstrate all his abilities and was searching for a way to improve his reputation. In 2014 before the start of his fight at AFC 21, Colby reported that hoped that fight would be his last and he would get into the UFC. He was right and signed a deal with the organization in the summer.
“Chaos” took all advantages from his wrestling abilities. He dominated the opponent and controlled him on the ground. The mixed martial artist started in UFC with three wins in three fights; however, Warlley Alves defeated him in his fourth duel. That fact didn’t stop Colby, and he continued to win. He was better than such fighters as Jonathan Meunier, Max Griffin, Bryan Barberena, Dong Hyun Kim and Demian Maia. By the end of 2017, Colby was the third in the official UFC welterweight rankings.
His excellent results allowed him to challenge the current champion Tyron Woodley, who had a shoulder injury at that moment and couldn’t fight. The UFC’s leadership decided to play the title of interim champion between Colby Covington and the Brazilian Rafael dos Anjos. Colby won that fight.
Colby said a lot of different things while his trash talking. In one of such reports, he spoke about his roommate and former light heavyweight champion Jon Jones. Joe Rogan decided to warn the fighter against dirty words about Joe and said that Joe could kill him by his hands. Colby sharply answered Joe, and it was enough to stop that public conflict.
After the victory over dos Anjos, the fans of Tyron Woodley and dissatisfied society accused Colby of getting a belt through deception. In his post fight interview, the interim champion said:
“There are still gonna be haters, “Oh well you didn’t do this right, you didn’t do that right.” Now we got a belt, now what do you have to say? Now we’re coming after Woodley; there’s no stopping us now. Absolutely not”.
His sister Candace was joining him in post-fight callouts of reigning division kingpin Tyron Woodley. After the championship fight “Chaos” started doing what he wanted. He reported about the supporting of the current U.S. president Donald Trump and his desire to visit the White House. Two months later he became the first UFC Champion, who was allowed to meet the president. However, UFC wanted to assign a fight between Tyron Woodley, the current champion, and Colby Covington, the interim champion, in September 2018. Colby refused to do it because of his injury.
The UFC bosses were dissatisfied with the answer and announced the name of the next contender for the champions’ title. It was Darren Till. All the summer of 2018 was full of gossips about Colby. There was news that he was stripped of his pointless interim title. Belal Muhammad, Woodley’s sparring partner, publicly supported that decision. Nowadays, Colby is still in conflict with UFC, according to sherdog.com, and there is no information about his next fight.
Professional Wrestling Career
Like any UFC fighter Colby looks at the WWE and wants to become its member. He is very good at trash talks, and a lot of wrestling chiefs noticed this fact. For example, Paul Heyman praised his work on the mic. Covington spoke that had good connections in WWE and once would be able to join it. In 2017 Covington took part in the other team in Impact Wrestling. And Covington won his first fight in such a format.
To prepare for this event, he hired as a trainer Stevie Richards. In February 2018, “Chaos” became the participant of a WrestlePro event. He fought against TyQuil Woodley, who appeared as an image of Tyron Woodley. Colby won again.
Personal life
The fighter keeps his own life in secret, and it is known very few about him. The only facts that become widely known are his public conflicts. Recently welterweight Mike Perry and his girlfriend Danielle Nickerson announced in Instagram their engagement. Among a lot of greetings, there was Colby’s comment:
“Good thing ya’ll live in Central Florida where marrying your horse is legal @platinummikeperry”.
It is typical behavior of Covington. Another Colby’s antic was a series of his tweets impugning drawing power and fighting style of Ben Askin, who signed his first contract with UFC and was preparing to debut.
Championships and achievements
FILA:
- 2013 - FILA 77 kg No-Gi Grappling World Championship Gold;
National Collegiate Athletic Association:
- 2011 - NCAA Division I All-American out of Oregon State University;
- 2010, 2011 - Pac-10 174 lb Conference Championship out of Oregon State University;
National Junior College Athletic Association:
- 2007 - NJCAA 165 lb National Championship out of Iowa Central Community College;
- 2007 - NJCAA All-American out of Iowa Central Community College;
Oregon State Activities Association:
- 2006 - OSAA 171 lb State Championship out of Thurston High School;
UFC:
- 2018 - Interim UFC Welterweight Championship.
Fight statistics of Colby Covington:
- W - Rafael dos Anjos (UFC 225|Jun 9, 2018)
- W - Demian Maia (UFC Fight Night 119|Oct 28, 2017)
- W - Dong Hyun Kim (UFC Fight Night 111|Jun 17, 2017)
- W - Bryan Barberena (UFC on Fox 22|Dec 17, 2016)
- W - Max Griffin (UFC 202|Aug 20, 2016)
- W - Jonathan Meunier (UFC Fight Night 89|Jun 18, 2016)
- L - Warlley Alves (UFC 194|Dec 12, 2015)
- W - Mike Pyle (UFC 187|May 23, 2015)
- W - Wagner Silva Gomes (UFC Fight Night|Nov 8, 2014)
- W - Anying Wang (UFC Fight Night|Aug 23, 2014)
- W - Jay Ellis (AFC 21|May 16, 2014)
- W - Jose Caceres (CFA 12|Oct 12, 2013)
- W - Jason Jackson (Fight Time 10|Jun 22, 2012)
- W - David Hayes (Fight Time 9|Apr 27, 2012)
- W - Chris Ensley (Midtown Productions|Feb 11, 2012)
