For all of Colby Covington’s pre-fight pageantry, his first fight in a year ended in rather inauspicious circumstances.

The American, fighting for the first time since losing his latest bid for a UFC world title to then-champ Leon Edwards a year ago, walked to the ring with his recently-acquired head coach Chael Sonnen with both flanked by the flag-waving former professional wrestler Hulk Hogan.

Unfortunately for Covington, that’s where the fun stopped. The veteran welterweight was drafted in on short notice to replace Ian Machado Garry against the surging contender Joaquin Buckley, after the Irishman was in turn removed from the bout for a top-of-the-division showdown with Shavkat Rakhmonov last weekend.

It is perhaps an indicator of Covington’s standing in the division (he has lost four of his past six) that it was he that was asked to fill in the gaps opened by a new generation of welterweight contenders — and his performance in the nearly three rounds before the fight was stopped due to a gnarly cut on his right eyebrow likely demonstrated that his time as a top contender has come and gone.

Speaking post-fight, UFC boss Dana White praised Covington’s toughness for withstanding much of Buckley’s prolonged assault but said that he believed that the 36-year-old wouldn’t have been too upset by the fight being stopped due to injury.

“He’s always durable and he’s always tough,” White told The Mac Life and other reporters of Covington’s showing in the cage.

“Did you hear the body shots he was getting hit with tonight? And the head shots he took? That stuff would have stopped other guys. Colby’s tough, but I also feel like Colby wasn’t too pissed that fight got stopped by the cut. The cut was definitely bothering him.

“He’s obviously still one of the top ranked guys. What we were saying about him all night, took big shots, stayed in there, the cut was obviously bothering him but I also believe if that fight’s in Vegas, that fight doesn’t get stopped with that cut. But I don’t think that Colby was very upset when it did [finish]. It was bothering him.”

You can watch White’s full comments in the video above.