Cejudo and Usman roast Covington after 43-second submission loss to bantamweight Rosas

Colby Covington was submitted in 43 seconds by Raul Rosas Jr. at a Hype Fighting submission-only grappling event in Italy on Tuesday, and the fallout from his peers has been swift and unsparing.

Rosas, who competes at bantamweight (135 lbs), secured a rear-naked choke to force Covington — a former interim UFC welterweight champion who fights at 170 lbs — to tap out in under a minute. The result drew immediate ridicule from two fighters who know Covington well: Henry Cejudo and Kamaru Usman, who dissected the loss on their Pound 4 Pound podcast.

“He gets fcking taken down, double-legged, this is the whole fight, 40 seconds,” Cejudo said. “Look at this motherfcker, and he’s supposed to beat Khamzat Chimaev next f*cking week?”

The timing of the defeat makes it particularly damaging. Covington is scheduled to face Chimaev — a former UFC middleweight champion — in the main event of RAF Abu Dhabi next Saturday, and the optics of being manhandled by a bantamweight have done little to inspire confidence in his chances.

Usman, who holds two title fight victories over Covington, offered a more measured but equally pointed assessment. “First and foremost, I would say this: That’s not excusable because of your name and the brand that you’ve built,” he said. “Now us, real fighters and competitors, we know how difficult and how different they are. Super different. Wrestling and jiu-jitsu are completely different. So Raul Rosas caught him off guard, got in there, and put him away.”

Usman also noted that Covington appeared mentally unprepared for the pace of the match. “You could see his face. He was not ready for that level of intensity right away. For a guy that’s supposed to be intense, he was not ready for that level of intensity.”

Cejudo was less forgiving, declaring that Covington’s self-styled “King of Miami” persona had taken a serious hit. “Colby Covington, you ain’t the king of shit no more,” he said, before acknowledging that a win over Chimaev could salvage the situation. “If he’s able to come out and beat Khamzat Chimaev, people will forget it — or maybe he’ll get a rematch with Raul Rosas, but I think Raul will probably do that shit again to him.”

The Hype Fighting event attracted limited mainstream attention, which may spare Covington from the full weight of public backlash. But with a high-profile fight against Chimaev days away, both Cejudo and Usman agree that another poor performance could do lasting damage to a reputation already built on bluster as much as results.