Former undisputed UFC flyweight and bantamweight champion, Henry Cejudo has claimed that is it now beyond doubt that Dominance MMA stablemate, Kamaru Usman is undeniably the greatest welterweight mixed martial artist of all time off the back of his fifth consecutive title defense at UFC 268 last weekend.
Usman, who racked up his fifth straight successful welterweight title knockback at Madison Square Garden last weekend, managed to even out a late rally from two-time opponent, former interim welterweight titleholder, Colby Covington to land his second decision win over the Clovis native.
With the victory, Usman, who is the current pound-for-pound #1 fighter on the UFC’s books as per the official rankings, became the most prolific streaking welterweight in the history of the organization — lodging his fifteenth consecutive victory since his bow on The Ultimate Fighter in 2015.
Immediately following his unanimous judging win over Covington, comparisons between Usman’s run and the legendary streak of former two-weight champion, Georges St-Pierre rose to the surface once more — with UFC president, Dana White claiming that an argument could be made that the Auchi native had surpassed the former welterweight and middleweight kingpin as the best welterweight of all time.
Henry Cejudo backs Kamaru Usman as the greatest welterweight of all time
Backing up those claims, however, is another former two-division UFC champion — the aforenoted, Cejudo. Speaking with The Schmo post-UFC 268, the Olympic gold medalist laid out a pretty cut and dry argument as to why he views Usman as the greatest welterweight to ever compete in the sport.
“Of course, without a doubt,” Henry Cejudo said when speaking of Usman’s status as the welterweight best. “I mean, GSP [Georges St-Pierre’ has done some amazing things but GSP has also had close fights.“
“You can almost put an asterisk when he fought Johny Hendricks,” Henry Cejudo said. “He’s had close fights before and like I said before, Kamaru Usman is putting people away, he’s hurting people, I mean he’s literally knocking people out essentially. He wasn’t able to do it against Colby Covington but you can’t deny it, man.“
Cejudo continued and claimed that Usman’s numbers as champion speak for themselves, as well as his status as the promotion’s pound-for-pound king. And also believes the ONX Labs trainee and Trevor Wittman student can make further evolvements to his overall game.
“Those numbers don’t like and there’s a reason why Kamaru Usman is pound-for-pound — and the crazy thing about it too is that there is a lot of room for improvement that I see with Kamaru Usman,” Henry Cejudo said. (Transcribed by MMA News)
This year alone, Usman lodged the third and fourth successful title defense of his reign with a pair of knockout wins over both former teammate, Gilbert Burns, and two-time foe, Jorge Masvidal — the second of which came in April in the form of a brutal second round one-punch finish in Jacksonville, Florida.