Tucker Carlson - Ep 57. Imagine any other sports league employing a guy like Colby Covington. Impossible. TIMESTAMPS (00:00) Why does Rosie O’Donnell hate Colby? (12:25) Trump’s chances in 2024 (15:37) The art of talking trash (23:10) Becoming a fighter
Colby Covington’s UFC career blends brutal combat with unapologetic conservative politics, from mocking Rosie O’Donnell as a "vile old lady" to accusing LeBron James of being "bought by China." He credits UFC’s free-speech culture—contrasting it with the NBA’s alleged globalist censorship—and uses trash talk like "soy boy" to spike pay-per-views, even sparking a bar brawl after exposing an ex-friend’s infidelity. With six-day training regimes, extreme weight cuts, and zero alcohol, he frames discipline as his weapon against woke agendas, while praising Trump’s "toughness" and predicting his 2024 win despite rigging fears. Post-fighting, he eyes a nonprofit for first responders, blending his blue-collar roots with a mission to defend America’s values—both in the cage and beyond. [Automatically generated summary]
So you have decided to just be very open about your political views and mix them with your profession, which is fighting at UFC. Was that a tough decision for you?
So there's been a lot of talk about why the UFC is the only sport, professional sport in the United States, where the participants are allowed to say what they think.
And a lot of that, I think, has to do with Dana White, who's just said we're allowing free speech, and God bless him for that.
But it does seem like a big percentage of guys who fight at UFC are on your side politically.
You know, I think they think that because they grew up in, you know, this constitutional, you know, great country of America, you know, land of the free, home of the brave.
And I think they've seen, you know, just the toxicity that this woke agenda has caused people, you know?
I mean, a lot of us are shadow banned on some of the...
Some of the platforms, I'm not going to speak their name because they don't deserve that attention.
But, you know, when you start taking away free spree, that's a dangerous proposition.
There's no going back from that.
So I think people just want to stand up for what they believe in and, you know, the rights that this country was founded upon.
You know, you've got people like LeBron James who, you know, he makes all his money in his shoe deals in China with these women that are working for, you know, pennies on the dollar in these sweatshops.
And that's how he makes all his money, you know.
And then you've got Travis Kelsey, who's Mr. Pfizer, who's, you know, telling people he's paid and bought for by Satan himself.
Pretty much.
He sold his soul to the devil.
He's telling people, get the double jab.
I'm not saying I'm for or against vaccines, but if you get one jab, shouldn't you make sure that it's safe?
There's not going to be any side effects from that one.
If you're getting two at the same time, how are you going to know which one's giving you side effects?
Some of the most atrocious things that I've ever heard someone say.
You know, they're playing it for the people that fought and to protect this country and give us our freedom so we can have opportunities like LeBron.
And here he is sitting for it, making a joke out of our national anthem and all the families out there that have to have suffering because they lost, you know, some of their family members in war.
And here he is just making a mockery of them and just slapping them in the face.
You can tell he's acting on behalf of someone else, and he's bought and paid for by the establishment, and pretty much whatever they tell him to do, he's just going to do that.
So at some point, I don't know when it was less than 10 years ago, somebody clearly decided, hey, NBA is really culturally influential.
And we need to make sure that our message is delivered by the players at NBA. I mean, it's really obvious that that happened.
UFC is on its way to eclipsing the NBA. I mean, I don't remember in the last year anyone talking about the NBA. Everyone's talking about the sport that you're in.
No, I don't think so because, you know, our leaders, Dana White and Hunter Campbell, you know, they're believers in free speech and they don't put a muzzle on anybody.
They tell everybody to...
Think and stand on what you believe in.
We're not going to tell you how to think or act.
You can do that on your own.
They went from being on the brink of not having a company to now they're a multi-billion publicly traded company.
I don't think they're ever going to do that.
They believe in free speech.
They believe in constitutional rights and everything that America stands for.
I wanted to get in and get out, you know, make a good living for myself, change, you know, the structure that my family grew up in.
We came from a blue-collar family in Oregon, and, you know, I wanted to be able to break that trend and that mold and be able to become a multimillion-dollar famous athlete.
I didn't care so much about the fame, but I just wanted the financial aspect, the freedoms from it, so I could live a good life.
Didn't expect it to be this long, but I'm loving every second of it.
I enjoy all the hate, all the people that tell me that I can't do something, or you can't do this, or you're going to get knocked out, we're going to do this to you.
I enjoy that.
That's what drives me.
It gets me up early in the morning to work harder.
I'll do kickboxing with one martial art, and then I'll do jiu-jitsu because you have to practice submissions, and then I'll do some wrestling, and then I'll do strength and conditioning to make sure my conditioning's in peep form.
Ever since I got out of college, I went straight into MMA and I wanted to make a better life for myself.
So this was the only professional sport.
Wrestling, it's like you can go to the Olympics and try and be an Olympic athlete, but those people make about the same amount of money as the person that's flipping burgers outside here.
I feel like that's why God put me on this earth to chase my dreams and, you know, work hard and push my body and my mind to the limit.
Not just my body, but it's also, it's a mental thing.
And I feel like fighting is a lot of mental.
It's, you know, if the thoughts that you put in your head are really, you can manifest a lot of things in this sport, but you can also bring yourself down.
You know, if you're thinking negative thoughts, you know, you're probably not going to have positive results.
I think about, you know, the people that are the real heroes and celebrities of this country, people like law enforcement, people in military.
And I think about what their day-to-day lives are.
There's no holidays for war.
You know, these people are serving these politicians and fighting these politicians' wars overseas, but they don't get like a Christmas holiday for war.
No, they have to go over there and protect these people and protect our country and keep us free and safe here.
I think about their life and their lifestyle.
I have a lot of friends in the military.
My buddy, Steven Hodson, who's a first sergeant for the Army Rangers.
He's with the skydiving team right now.
I just think about what he's had to go through in Afghanistan and Iraq and all these different wars that he's been in.
And that's what makes me think about my life's easy, man.
I get to do something I love every day.
This is my passion, to get up and train every single day.
So how could I ever complain about my passion, something I love, when I have someone who's fighting for our country?
And, you know, all he knows is he's standing for the red, white, and blue in our country's flags and colors.
But, you know, he's fighting these politicians' senseless wars.
But he's doing it, you know.
He's raising his hand saying, I want to do it because I love my country.
One of the differences, though, between what you do and what he does is when you step into the ring, you know for dead certain there's going to be violence aimed at you.
I always told myself growing up, there's only one man or one thing that I'm ever going to fear, and that's God.
So, you know, I feel like God has a plan for me, and He put me here for a reason, to have a platform and to be able to give it back to the people that deserve it most, such as first responders, military, and, you know, our troops that protect us every single day.
So, you know, I just, I don't think about the...
What could happen, like, the bad side of it.
I think about how I could change my life and what good I could do with it.
Because, you know, I don't just want to get, get, get.
I want to be able to give.
And, you know, I'm starting up a nonprofit, you know, to benefit first responders and military.
And to be able to give back to those people is, like, more important to me than how I feel or my selfish, you know, fears in life.
Yeah, I've taken a couple short notice fights where I had to take it on a week or two's notice.
If I didn't take those, I wouldn't be in favor with the UFC and I wouldn't be a guy that they can depend on.
But it's one of my greatest assets to be able to be ready to fight for them at any time and do good business for the UFC. How much time do you spend with the other fighters?
I think he's going to win by a landslide if it's a fair election, but we know that they're going to do everything they can to rig this election in any way.
They did the fake COVID and all the mail-in voting last time.
Which string are they going to pull next?
Are they going to try and do some martial law type stuff in America?
I don't know.
We know it's not going to be a fair election.
Trump's the strongest fighter I've ever met and the most loyal person.
What president went into office and their net worth went down after being in office?
He's the only one ever.
Everybody else, they sold out to the lobbyists and the politicians.
His hard work for America is incredible.
I mean, he was in Iowa one day.
He was in New Hampshire the next day.
He came to watch my fight.
And then he was in Reno the following day.
I mean, who's working harder for this country than him?
That's how much he loves this country.
It's not about him or what he's doing to advance him or his family's name.
No, he's doing this for our country because he loves our country and he wants to put America first again.
And the process is just to try and get in the psychological part of someone's mind and alter them, make them fight with emotions.
Because when you fight with emotions, you're not going to fight the same as if you're in a free state where you can just not think and you can just do it off of intuition.
But if you can get in someone's head and make them super mad where they're just going to abandon their game plan, they just want to hurt you, they want to knock you out, then you're an advantage.
There's a huge aspect to it too because it sells pay-per-views and it creates engagement because it makes it so people aren't going to be down the middle.
They're either going to hate you or they're going to love you.
But that's what you want because even the haters, they're not going to turn the TV to watch Real Housewives of Miami.
No, they're going to keep it on UFC because they want to see you lose.
But then people that respect you and like you, they're going to keep watching because they want to see you win and they want to see you keep rising.
There's a very important aspect to selling fights and being able to promote yourself.
But it's funny, because all the people that have taken it personal in the past, during the time, after their checks cleared their banks, they realized, hey, man, I actually appreciate everything you did, Colby, like you.
You made me a lot more money otherwise if you would have just been quiet and acted like a mute.
But the fact that you were vocal and you made it more animosity-filled for the fight, that made me more money in the long run.
It's just someone that's been talking smack in the media, been throwing, you know, some terms around at me and, you know, never done anything or accomplished half of what I've accomplished in this sport.
So, you know, I had to give it back to him a little bit and just say the truth.
Nah, he doesn't have my number, but I'm sure he's probably trying to figure out, like, my location or where I'm going to be, and he'll probably try and jump me walking out of a poppy stake or something, like someone else did in one of my prior fights.
I was hanging out with my friends, the note boys, and I don't know what happened, but we were walking outside and he was able to stalk me and he waited in the bushes with like a bunch of friends and a ski mask.
What?
Yeah.
And we walked outside and we were going to go to another spot to have dinner.
Next thing I know, boom in the back of the head, boom in the front of the face, knock my tooth out, and then...
I beat him up for 25 minutes straight in the UFC octagon, so of course he had to do it illegally when I wasn't looking, because if he looked me in the eyes like a man, he knew he wouldn't be able to do anything to me, but the only way he could do something is if he cheap-shotted me and stalked me like the criminal that he is.
And then they're doing the same thing where they're not putting any salt in their body for the week and no sugar and just high water intake and pretty much just starving themselves.
Guzzling water, eating salt, eating a lot of carbs because you've been depriving your body of carbohydrates for a couple weeks because you're high protein, low carbs.
So a lot of pancakes, a lot of pastas, and yeah, just a lot of different electrolyte drinks to replenish yourself of all that water that you drain your body of.