Kamaru Usman believes he may have rushed into his trilogy bout with Leon Edwards.
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, Kamaru 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, Kamaru 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 where 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.
“That when they think of the welterweight division, they don’t think about my name as No. 1. So, after that fight, I’m like, ‘You know what? No. I’m not gonna give this man an opportunity to carry around my belt to say he’s the champion and start to do certain things and think of himself as the champion.’ Because the longer that is, the more they start to build that confidence and that bravado, and I don’t like that. So, as a competitor, I was like, ‘No, let’s go ahead and get this one out of the way. Send him back on down to where he belongs as a contender.’
“For Israel, I’m sure as a competitor he’s feeling a little bit of this as well and thinking, ‘This guy shouldn’t have beat me in the first place,’ just like I felt. ‘This guy shouldn’t even be in there with me in the first place,’ as I felt. So, you want to get it back and get that stain off of you right away but if you’re guaranteed that shot, I would like to see him take a little bit of time. Enjoy life but not to say he’s not gonna train or be in the mix. Of course, as a champion, we always watch everything. We see all. So, I would like to see him take a little bit of time and just really indulge and be who he really is and let your body rest and recover” (h/t MMA Fighting).
Kamaru Usman Comments on Sean Strickland’s Defeat of Israel Adesanya
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. Like Leon Edwards‘ performance against Usman at UFC 286, Strickland dictated the action for a full five rounds, leaving absolutely no question who the champion was once we went to the scorecards.
“Sean 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. Sean Strickland did his thing but it’s not hard to see the Israel Adesanya that we’re all used to seeing wasn’t the Israel Adesanya we saw last weekend.”