UFC Tampa mailbag: Joaquin Buckley turns his franchise around, and Colby Covington’s legacy

UFC Tampa is in the books, and Joaquin Buckley is now a bona fide contender. Buckley dominated Colby Covington in Saturday’s main event en route to a third-round TKO finish after a nasty cut on Covington’s eyelid forced the doctor to stop the bout. Before that went down, Cub Swanson turned back the clock with an awesome knockout of Billy Quarantillo, and Manel Kape wailed on Bruno Silva before setting himself up for a potential title shot against Alexandre Pantoja. A lot went down Saturday, so let’s dive right in.

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Joaquin Buckley does the thing

“Has any fighter ever changed their image more seamlessly/quickly than Buckley? This is Angelina Jolie/post-career A-Rod-esque.”

Plenty of fighters turned their image around over the course of their careers, but I’m not sure any have done it as quickly as Buckley has.

The Joaquin Buckley roller-coaster has been a wild ride over the past few years. This is a guy who came into the UFC and immediately became notable for his insane ninja kick knockout of Impa Kasanganay that is still one of the coolest KOs you will ever see. People thought maybe he could do something, but then he just sort of fizzled out at middleweight and that was it.

Then Buckley dropped down to 170 pounds, and it looked like he was back. A few good wins and Buckley is now the dark horse of the welterweight division, except then “New Mansa” tried his hardest to shoot himself in the foot, making a universally panned callout of Conor McGregor, and then starting beef with two beloved MMA figures - Cub Swanson and Daniel Cormier. There was an astonishing lack of awareness from Buckley as he did his level best to make fans not like him.

And then he just stopped doing that! It’s incredible! Instead of doing bad things, Buckley just did good things. It’s a wild idea, but it immediately paid dividends. Buckley ended 2024 with stoppage wins over two former title challengers, and then took a risk with his post-fight speech, doing a call and response to get the fans to choose his next opponent - and it worked! The crowd responded enough and Buckley created an organic and reasonable matchup with former champion Kamaru Usman. Talk about turning the franchise around!

This is what we want to see from fighters. Instead of making silly, avoidable mistakes and then endlessly doubling down on them, accept criticism and make a change (*cough* Jamahal Hill *cough*). Buckley is a talented fighter who was headed down a path that was going to alienate fans and make his career more difficult. Now, he’s on his way towards being a fan favorite — the crowd started with a “Let’s go Colby!” chant and ended with “Col-by sucks!” — which I never would have imagined possible even six months ago.

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Buckley vs. Usman

“They’re going to give Buckley Usman next aren’t they? That’s an unnecessary fight that just delays Buckley’s progression.”

They absolutely are, and they 100 percent should. He deserves the fight, Usman needs it, and there aren’t a ton of other options that make sense.

First, let me just say that for as much as I loved Buckley making the fan applause-o-meter thing work, that may not be the best part of Buckley’s post-fight speech—because Belal Muhammad arguably “won” the fan vote—but Buckley had the good sense to insist Usman did, not the champion who is basically already booked. That is savvy career management.

And ultimately, that’s what a lot of the Buckley criticism comes down to. It’s bad enough when fighters say, “I’ll fight whoever the UFC gives me,” because that’s letting life happen to them, but it’s worse when they actively hurt their own interests by making bad callouts and ruffling feathers. Instead, Buckley took charge of his own career and look how it’s paying off.

There’s now a very real world where Buckley gets a title shot by beating Vicente Luque, Stephen Thompson, Covington, and Usman, four fighters with big names who are past their primes. That’s about as good as you can ask for if you’re a contender looking to make a title run.

And for Usman, the fight makes sense. Buckley has shine now and Usman has to fight at least once before getting a title shot (I would argue he should have to do more, but this ain’t a meritocracy), and while I’m probably picking Buckley, that is a winnable fight for Usman, where Ian Machado Garry might not be anymore.

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Colby Covington’s cut

“Colby wins that fight in the championship rounds if that cut is anywhere else on his face. Thoughts?”

LOL. Good joke.

If that fight isn’t stopped—it 100 percent should have been, the quote from the doctor was “He’s going to lose an eyelid”—Covington would have been down three rounds and still had a nasty cut to contend with. Also, he was having slightly more success with wrestling, but Buckley was still clobbering him on the feet.

Covington had nothing for Buckley on Saturday, plain and simple, and honestly, he’s lucky the bout ended the way it did. Covington was probably on his way to a brutal KO loss, and if not, at least this way “Chaos” can use the classic Nate Diaz “I didn’t lose, I was robbed by the doctor.”

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Covington’s legacy

“If this is the end of Colby Covington as an elite welterweight contender, how will he be remembered?”

I do not mean this to sound mean, but my best guess is that he won’t really be remembered.

I think Covington was a very good fighter and great prize fighter. This is a guy who, like Chael Sonnen before him, was good but had a boring fighting style and so he chose to remake his image into something people could gravitate towards. I wrote at the time, and I still maintain, that Covington leaning into the Make America Great Again movement was a really smart move, and I think that’s held up, because love it or hate it, it worked. Covington went from a good fighter no one remembered to a lightning rod that grabbed headlines.

But this does have some problems, ones Covington was never able to overcome. The first is that political alignment is a temporary sort of pop. We almost never remember athletes for their political stances, and while plenty of people enjoy seeing people they ideologically agree with win, nobody is interested in seeing them lose. So that’s a transient form of fandom that isn’t conducive to hagiography.

But the bigger issue is that, simply put, Covington isn’t cool. Chael Sonnen got his gimmick of repackaging old pro-wrestling promos to work because he is a very charismatic and clever person. Covington is obviously not either of those things. So while Chael could make trite, almost cringe-worthy jokes land with a knowing wink, Covington couldn’t even make walking out with Hulk Hogan seem interesting. The man fundamentally does not have the tools to connect with people through his words or his actions, and so was left with blatant pandering, which worked but which does not resonate long-term.

MMA, in general, doesn’t remember fighters all that well, especially if the fighter in question was never a champion. I sincerely doubt that Covington’s interim title reign (one of the shortest ever) passes the bar here and so then what are we left with? What indelible Covington memory jumps off the page? None, really. So ultimately, Covington will be like most other fighters: forgotten.

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Cub Swanson

“Cub Swanson... cool? Or coolest?

You know what fighter won’t be forgotten? Cub freaking Swanson!

We don’t need to do a big career retrospective on Swanson, because he may not be done fighting, but needless to say, it was awesome to see a 41-year-old beloved figure go out there, and not just perform well, but get a highlight-reel finish. Before the finish came in the third round, I was watching that fight and thinking how cool it was that Cub still has wars like that in him, and then he dropped the boom stick and it was perfect.

If Cub chooses to come back and fight once more, I won’t have an issue with it. The man is clearly still game and, maybe more importantly, he’s there to have fun. But if he chooses not to, and that’s the last time we saw “Killer Cub,” it’s a better end than most fighters get and a fitting conclusion for an all-time great action fighter.

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Sean Woodson

“Who are the best matchups for Sean Woodson at 145?”

Honestly, I have no idea. Woodson is sort of an anomaly for me as he’s clearly very good, but I never know what to do with him. Unbeaten in his past seven fights, all against pretty solid opposition, the obvious—and I think correct—decision is for him to get a crack at the top-15. Looking at the UFC rankings, Giga Chikadze probably makes the most sense, as we’ll get a fun striker’s matchup there.

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Manel Kape

“Is Manel Kape the clear No. 1 contender at Flyweight or does he need to fight Kai Kara-France to determine the next contender for Alexandre Pantoja?”

He is definitely not the clear No. 1 contender, but I think he may get the title shot.

When Kape came over from RIZIN, the idea was always that “Starboy” was a potential champion. Unfortunately, Kape’s had a rough run in the UFC. His debut was against Pantoja and that didn’t go his way and then he lost a questionable decision to Matheus Nicolau. Kape put together a winning streak before then losing another questionable decision to Muhammad Mokaev (who also egregiously cheated throughout the bout). In many circumstances, Kape might just be a victim of bad circumstances, but flyweight isn’t most divisions.

Pantoja doesn’t have anyone to fight right now. Demetrious Johnson isn’t coming back, and even though Deiveson Figueiredo says he’s interested in dropping back down to 125, I don’t know if the UFC is interested. Figgy was never a guarantee to make weight before, and now he’s been living the good life up at bantamweight, it simply may not be worth the risk.

Which leaves Pantoja with a bunch of rematches, and while we all respect Brandon Royval and Moreno, Pants is 5-0 against them combined. At some point, it’s rude to ask him to keep beating the same two dudes over and over again.

That’s how we end up with Pantoja defending against Steve Erceg and Kai Asakura, and it may well be how we finally get the Kape rematch. There’s a built-in storyline, it’s relatively fresh, and Kape will sell the hell out of the fight.

Plus, did you see him on Saturday? That’s the RIZIN Manel Kape we’ve all been waiting for, confidence for days and devastating striking all night long. Sign me up for that guy to face the Pantoja we saw run through Asakura.

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Thanks for reading, and thank you to everyone who sent in tweets (Xs?)! Do you have any burning questions about things at least somewhat related to combat sports? Then you’re in luck because you can send your tweets to me, @JedKMeshew, and I will answer my favorite ones! It doesn’t matter if they’re topical or insane, just so long as they are good. Thanks again, and see y’all next week.