Colby ‘Chaos’ Covington claims he’ll fight for the UFC welterweight title in 2025 against undefeated Kazakh warrior, Shavkat Rakhmonov.
Following Belal Muhammad’s outstanding victory over Leon Edwards to claim the UFC welterweight gold and glory this past weekend, there are a host of contenders who his first title defense could potentially be against.
Yet as fans and fighters alike begin to dissect what’s next for a division now in title turmoil, there are some truly bold predictions being made – including from the king of ‘Chaos’ himself, Colby Covington.
Colby Covington ‘goes off’ on Belal Muhammad following title win
Speaking via Submission Radio, it took less than a minute for former UFC interim welterweight champion Colby Covington to launch yet another vicious verbal assault on the newly crowned king of the 170lb division.
“I feel bad for the fans man, they got robbed of some entertainment and the highest-level fight of two bums, so I feel bad for the fans,” he stated on the UFC 304 main event, before taking aim at ‘Remember the Name’ directly.
“The guy’s is a f***** p****; the only time he wanted to fight me was when I already had a title fight signed, sealed and delivered – otherwise he’s never said my name because he knows he’s a little b**** and he knows what I would do to him.
“He’s a p**** and if I cross paths with him, he won’t be champion anymore, he won’t be a man anymore [as] I will take his man card… I’d love to fight him; I hope that fight happens. I’ll do whatever it takes to get to that.”
Covington argued that a fight between him and the newly-minted UFC champion would look similar to Muhammad’s first fight against Vicente Luque from 2016 – a bout in which the Brazilian fan favorite landed a brutal knockout shot just 79 seconds into the first round.
“He’s not going to take me down; he’s not going to put his wrestling game on me. His striking sucks – he couldn’t even finish Gilbert Burns when Gilbert was on one arm, so what’s he going to do to me?”
The controversial former interim titleholder then accused Muhammad of taking PEDs as he predicted that his championship reign would be a short one: “I think it’s a one-and-done type thing, he’s obviously on the right steroids right now, he’s doing the right cycles.”
“He had a one night, lightning-in-a-bottle type performance and he’s the supposed ‘paper champ’ right now but no one cares, he doesn’t draw flies to s***… It’s not like he’s going to earn any money and he’s going to do as he’s told.”
As per the UFC Anti-Doping database, ‘Remember the Name’ has been tested three times in 2024 so far (the same number as Covington) and has returned clean results on each occasion.
Ironically, it also didn’t take long for Belal Muhammad himself to respond to the callout, posting to X a series of laughing emojis and “0-3” – referencing Covington’s three undisputed title losses.
Covington claims he’ll fight 18-0 Shavkat Rakhmonov for title in 2025
‘Chaos’ hasn’t fought in the UFC since dropping a unanimous decision to Edwards back in December 2023, but Covington is hopeful that he could be back in the octagon and competing for the world title before the end of 2025.
Interestingly, the brash American believes that it’ll be a short title reign for Muhammad and that he’ll actually need to wrestle away the welterweight belt from undefeated star Shavkat Rakhmonov, by the time he re-enters title contention.
“I do think that he’ll [Muhammad] be one-and-done, I think I’ll be fighting s***-rat [Shavkat for the title] before the end of next year… I’ll get back in there and whoever is the biggest and best business that I can do for the UFC and for the fans.
“I’m going to get back on the phone to the UFC, see what I need to do to get back to that title and I will be champion, the people know it, I know it, it’s my destiny.”
When asked what he actually thought of Rakhmonov as a competitor, Covington dismissed the notion that the 18-0 ‘Nomad’ is one of the most dangerous fighters in the division; let alone deserving of a title shot.
“I don’t think anything special of s***-rat, I think the way he fights – he fights very tall, chin up in the air… And he fought Wonderboy last fight, I don’t know how that warrants the title shot but I don’t know.
“He’s finished a lot of nobody’s, but he hasn’t fought top contenders yet… There’s a lot of unknowns but I know that I have the skillset to beat anybody in the world.”
As of July 30, and in accordance with today’s official update, Covington is the #4 ranked welterweight in the world – one spot below the undefeated Rakhmonov at #3.