Kamaru Usman bares his mind on Ngannou, Fury, Adesanya’s defeat and his trilogy with Edwards
UFC's former champion, Kamaru Usman, during the week bare his mind on the upcoming bout between Francis Ngannou, Israel Adesanya defeat, and his trilogy with Leon Edwards which ended in defeat.
‘The Nigerian Nightmare’ and ‘The Predator’ have been friends for years now. Usman has previously even helped coach Ngannou, one has to imagine that he’s been replaced by Mike Tyson for this one. In October, the former heavyweight champion will face Tyson Fury.
The boxing match is slated for Saudi Arabia, with Tyson coaching Ngannou in the build-up. However, Tyson Fury and others don’t believe it’ll matter. A quick glance at the betting odds shows the former UFC heavyweight champion is a massive underdog. But, Usman is a believer in him.
“I’m going to go ahead and tap in on this one,” Usman responded when asked if he was interested in Fury vs. Ngannou. “When you see most guys stand next to Tyson Fury, he towers over them. Yes, he’s towering a little bit over Francis. But on fight night, both of them will be shirtless.”
He continued, “When Ngannou steps in there, there’s just something about him. His aura, that he’s so big. Tyson Fury said it himself, ‘That’s a big boy right there’. When they step in there on fight night, he’ll see how big Francis really is.”
August 20 was the one-year anniversary of Usman’s stunning fifth-round knockout loss to ‘Rocky’ at UFC 278. After spending 24 minutes of the bout in complete control, ‘The Nigerian Nightmare’ succumbed to a hail-mary head kick KO with 56 seconds left in the contest. With Usman capturing a victory over Edwards in 2015, the two fighters were deadlocked at 1-1 leading to a trilogy bout at UFC 286 in March.
Given his otherwise dominant performance for the majority of their penultimate meeting, Usman entered the threequel as the favorite once again. However, this time, it was Edwards who would put on the dominant performance from bell to bell, securing a majority decision to retain the welterweight world title and hand Usman back-to-back losses for the first time in his mixed martial arts career.
Looking back on his performance, Usman believes that he may have rushed his return to the Octagon.
“I was in his position and I honestly, looking back now, I probably rushed it,” Usman said on DC & RC. “I probably should have taken a little bit more time off. Then if I’m still guaranteed that shot, go fight for that title. Now, a big part of the reason why
you jump into the immediate rematch is — and I would say this to myself in my case as well — when you’re in the middle of a title reign, I don’t want a day to go by that I’m not the man in charge.”
UFC 293 saw the fall of another African-born world champion after Israel Adesanya suffered a lopsided unanimous decision defeat at the hands of often outspoken and unlikely contender Sean Strickland.
“ Strickland is not an easy guy to fight,” Usman said. “Especially with the way ‘Izzy’ fights, this is just kind of a style that will potentially neutralize that type of style. So, we have to give credit where credit is due here. Strickland did his thing but it’s not hard to see the Adesanya that we’re all used to seeing wasn’t the Adesanya we saw last weekend.”
