UFC 272 rundown: Covington will be relevant for a long time

Colby Covington returned to the win column at UFC 272, defeating Jorge Masvidal by unanimous decision in a welterweight grudge match Saturday in Las Vegas.

Also on the card, Rafael dos Anjos earned a bloody win over Renato Moicano, Bryce Mitchell continued his rise at featherweight with a one-sided victory against Edson Barboza, and Serghei Spivac handed Greg Hardy his third straight loss.

Here are five takeaways from the pay-per-view event:

Covington not going anywhere

Many people would love to see Covington lose a few in a row and get sent to the realm of irrelevancy, but that's not going to happen anytime soon.

At age 34, Covington - one of the most disliked fighters on the UFC roster - proved he is still very much in the prime of his career with a comprehensive and intelligent effort against Masvidal. His performance was a strong indicator of why he's ranked No. 1 in the welterweight division, just behind champion Kamaru Usman.

Covington's volume, pressure, and wrestling gave Masvidal problems over the course of five rounds. Masvidal had a few moments, including in the fourth round when he rocked Covington. But he failed to capitalize on that brief window of opportunity, and Covington was in control almost the entire fight. At the end of 25 minutes, there was no doubt he was the better fighter.

That style has and will continue to work against almost anyone at 170 pounds. In the last six years, Covington has beaten everyone he's faced except for Usman. And no one's tested Usman like Covington did in their 2019 and 2021 bouts.

Unfortunately for Covington, the fact he's lost twice to the current champion puts him in a tricky spot. UFC president Dana White said after the Masvidal fight that a third title shot could be in Covington's future, but he's going to need to work for it.

However, there's a decent chance he'll eventually make it back to a title fight. The guy that showed up at UFC 272 beats almost every welterweight in the promotion, and he can only be denied for so long.

Money fights for Masvidal

Covington-Masvidal was about two rivals settling a score, not title shots or rankings. But there was still a lot at stake. This was No. 1 versus No. 6; it was a big fight for the division and for both men.

A win was particularly important because Usman has beaten Covington and Masvidal twice each. The loser would essentially get knocked out of title contention for the foreseeable future, if not forever. And that's now happened to Masvidal.

At age 37, it's hard to see his path back to a title shot. At this point, it'd be surprising if Masvidal realizes another career resurgence - it's more likely that he'll continue to fall down the welterweight ladder. This is usually how it goes with fighters in their late 30s.

That said, Masvidal is still a popular fighter - albeit not quite as big of a star as he was at the end of 2019 - and there are still some "fun" fights to be had. In early 2020, a potential matchup with Conor McGregor was all the rage in the MMA world, and that would still do well on pay-per-view in 2022. Or they could run back the Nate Diaz fight.

A UFC belt might not be in Masvidal's future, but there's still money to be made. He'll be alright.

Dos Anjos still a contender

Dos Anjos is still very much a factor in the lightweight division.

There was no guarantee he'd perform as well as he did after sitting on the sidelines for the past 16 months, but the former UFC champion looked terrific. He put the wood chipper on Moicano in the five-round co-main event, pummeling him with ground-and-pound and controlling him with his grappling.

Ultimately, Dos Anjos fought like a top contender. There were no signs of him slowing down just yet. Ranked No. 6 at 155 pounds, the Brazilian deserves a chance to break into the top five and make one last title run.

Mitchell breaks through

Mitchell is a problem at 145 pounds.

The undefeated featherweight will join the top 10 after dominating Barboza in a way we've only seen from UFC legend Khabib Nurmagomedov - and arguably Kevin Lee. Mitchell will be tough to stop.

He's relentless on the ground. Not only is Mitchell a great wrestler, as he displayed against Barboza, but he has some of the sneakiest submissions in the promotion. His hands appear to be getting better, too, as he stunned Barboza on the feet at one point.

Still only 27 years old, it's been clear for a while that Mitchell has a very high ceiling. But this is the marquee win he was waiting for. Before Saturday, he hadn't fought a top-15 opponent. Now he's beaten the No. 10-ranked featherweight and a former longtime contender in the lightweight division.

After Saturday's impressive win, Mitchell becoming a top-three featherweight and potentially challenging for UFC gold is starting to seem a matter of when, not if.

Hardy's time is up

Enough is enough.

When Hardy, the controversial former NFL player, made his UFC debut in 2019, many predicted he would do well - and ultimately become a contender - because of his athleticism and the lack of depth in the heavyweight division.

Four wins, five losses, and a no-contest later, the Greg Hardy experiment has run its course.

Sure, we've seen worse fighters grace the Octagon, but there are major holes in Hardy's skill set, and he doesn't seem to be improving. Any sort of step up in competition has resulted in a loss.

Hardy's last three fights - all first-round knockout losses, two of which occurred after he was easily taken down by Marcin Tybura and Spivac - proved he simply isn't UFC caliber. If he wants to continue in MMA, he should go back to the regional circuit to prove himself.

It's not impossible for him to be a decent heavyweight one day - 33 years old is still somewhat young for the division - but as of right now, that just isn't the case.