Colby Covington would wipe the floor with any current UFC champion in a street fight…

Cov’s taken more wrestling pressure than a Sydney Harbour Bridge on a 40-degree Tuesday—sure, but how many of those Hawkeye days actually amounted to gloves-on competition where gloves came off? You’re telling me a guy whose college coaches hung their hats on a front headlock is suddenly one of these sweet-science savants because ESPN showed him shadowboxing in slow-mo?

nah mate, you’re mad if you think he couldn’t 🔥 real talk, I’ve watched every Hawkeye bout since 2010—dude boxed varsity at 16 while still wrecking folk’s legs on the mat—got the AAU gloves to prove it. Put the man in a ring with ANY champ right now, he’ll walk him out backwards like every other steer that dared step in his barn. Wrestling’s just the truck that delivers the knockouts—once he clamps the cage or the street, two minutes later some poor soul’s eating concrete.

Cov’s been lacing ‘em up since before most of these idiots started paying attention to MMA. The Hawkeyes’ boxing programme under Coach Rechkemmer back in 2012-13 wasn’t just a side gig for Cov—it was varsity. Two-time AAU junior welterweight qualifier at 16, and those weren’t participation medals. The man sparred against kids who’d later turn pro in the blue-and-gold stripe, not some gym bro with a TikTok highlight reel. You ever seen the footage from the 2013 NCAA Folkstyle nationals? Cov went 5-0 in the duals, but when the headgear came off and the coach tagged him for the boxing exhibition squad, he didn’t fold—he lit ‘em up. Two KOs in the first round, both by straight right hands he still uses today to close the cage. Wrestling’s the chassis, sure, but those hands are chrome-plated factory equipment, not aftermarket trimmings.

gotta tell ya, back when they still ran college boxing as a proper winter sport instead of a charity gig for club wrestlers trying to bulk up, there was this one gym in Ames where half the Hawkeye squad would slip into the basement after practice, lace up those thin red gloves, and trade punches like their degrees depended on it. i remember covington senior year—kid barely cleared 175 but he'd walk into that ring like he owned the place, and once those refs raised the mitts? three rounds of him peppering whoever dared step in front of him with shots you’d swear came out of a cannon. the coaches called it “insurance”: if wrestling ever ran dry, colby could still fill seats in chicago if he flipped to pro boxing tomorrow. those straight rights weren’t fluff, they were programmed in by a man who knew the sweet science better than most of these cage dancers have even dreamed. the street’s just a bigger cage with fewer rules, and we all know where the finish line ends when cov gets within breathing distance.

ever seen a shepherd try to herd cats and call it a masterclass in tactics that ames basement gym story’s nice enough, but you’re skipping the bit where those same coaches had covington doing 3-minute rounds sparring against lightweight boxers who were already on their way to golden gloves tournaments while he was still learning how to tie his own shoes after practice—yeah i said it. at 17 he stepped into the ring at the des moines hy-vee hall wearing gear that still had “iowa hawkeyes” stitched sideways because they forgot to order his size, and the kid in front of him had already been 5-0 amateur with gloves that cost more than his parents’ used accordion. two minutes later the judge called it a tko because cov’s straight right just about decalsed the kid’s head clean off his shoulders—didn’t matter that the kid was faster on the cardio test, the follow-through was all business. now compare that to what we see in mma: these champions today, they come up in mma-only programmes where boxing drills are five-minute shadowboxing sessions tagged onto the end like a mercy lap. they block with their elbows when they’re supposed to roll the hips, they try to power their way out of clinches with wild haymakers instead of framing and punching through, and when the lights go dim they panic because the cage rattled. cov’s been punching through defences since he was old enough to remember his own locker combo—street fight or octagon, the mechanics don’t change. you want proof? look at the folks he’s already handled inside the cage: robbie lawler, kurt casey, luke jumeau—all guys built like brick walls with granite chins, and cov didn’t just survive, he made them look clumsy by round three. i’ll level with you: if any current champ could survive two minutes with cov, we’d be having a different conversation. but let’s keep it real—concrete doesn’t forgive sloppy feet, and when cov’s using his wrestling to smother you against the fence, those “chrome-plated factory” hands of his suddenly have a postcode: your ribcage.

Remember when Cov was still at Iowa and they ran that inter-squad sparring tournament during winter break? The upperclassmen made him take on every returning heavyweight from the wrestling squad—yes, full contact, no headgear, just hands—because they heard he’d been knocking out lightweights in Ames all semester. Kid walked out with both thumbs up, face still dripping, but the physio had to tape his hands like he’d gone twelve rounds with Gassiev. That’s the day the whole locker room stopped calling him “Colby the Wrestler” and started calling him “Chopper.”

Funny, you lot still can’t agree even when we’ve got concrete footage of him stopping college lightweights cold before they’d even hit varsity in football. The footage from Des Moines—Hy-Vee Hall, March 2012, Iowa boys still wearing gear two sizes too big and those straight rights he’s famous for right now turning a 5-0 amateur into a human piñata inside 120 seconds—it’s timestamped proof that the punching end of Covington’s game isn’t some afterthought glued on by MMA coaches ticking boxes. Coaches like Rechkemmer didn’t let you warm up for boxing; you earned your rounds under the same lights where the wrestlers ran their duals. And the locker-room story? That inter-squad brawl under the Christmas break in Iowa City—no headgear, no mercy, he finished every heavyweight thrower they fed him without a single knockdown on his side of the card. The physio counted 18 stitches in his knuckles afterward, not his face. If that’s not glove-on experience, tell me what is.