Covington ‘volunteered to fight Shavkat,’ got pushed into Tampa instead

We’re coming up on the final UFC event of the year in Tampa, which just happens to make it Colby Covington fight week.

It wasn’t originally like that. Ian Garry was set to face Jaoquin Buckley in the Fight Night main event, but he was peeled off the card to fight Shavkat Rakhmonov at UFC 310. That led to the UFC getting Covington to replace him — something “Chaos” doesn’t seem particularly excited about. But after several months of turning down fights claiming his foot was injured, UFC got Covington to admit he was ready to compete … if it was against Shavkat.

“Yeah, S—trat is ducking me,” Colby concluded from the negotiations. “I called UFC, Hunter Campbell and Dana White to fight [Shavkat]. That’s the only fight I wanted: to fight him. I didn’t care about anyone else. They said they wanted to do the cuck fight [Garry vs. Rakhmonov], the undefeated vs. undefeated, it made sense to them.”

#UFCTampa after he called the UFC to step in for injured Belal Muhammad at #UFC310.

“Is Shavkat ducking me? Yeah Sh*t Rat is ducking me. I called UFC,… pic.twitter.com/EKDIIicHxW

— Parry Punch (@ParryPunchNews) December 9, 2024