Kamaru Usman is on one hell of a run in arguably the toughest division in the UFC.
After beating Emil Meek to a unanimous decision in St Louis, Kamaru Usman increased his win-streak to 11, seven of which have come inside the UFC’s Octagon. He is the first fighter since John Fitch in 2008 to win his first seven UFC welterweight fights. He also overtook Santiago Ponzinibbio to get the longest active win-streak in the 170 lb division.
Despite all these achievements, ‘the Nigerian Nightmare’ was showered with boos after the final buzzer. The crowd didn’t appreciate his wrestling-heavy gameplan, nor did they enjoy his victory speech.
“Listen, I fought this fight sitting at about 30%. Everybody knows what I’m capable of. I was 30% right there and I still dominated a tough so-called Viking.”
Dana White echoed the sentiments of the crowd during the UFC St Louis post-fight show on Fox Sports 1.
“I didn’t love that fight by the way. Yeah, he’s a tough guy. Yeah, he can impose his will. Then you don’t jump up and start talking smack like you just knocked somebody or something and say you only went 30%. So what’s that mean? What if you’re on PPV? You go 60%? It’s one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever heard somebody say. You’re getting booed out of the arena on top of it.”
Let me clear something up since some didn’t understand my post fight interview. What I meant was that I came into the fight at 30% health. I could’ve pulled out but I chose 2 stay the course & give @emilvalhalla his chance @ a top 10 guy. I fight anyone, anytime even at 30%.
— KAMARU USMAN (@USMAN84kg) January 15, 2018
Usman elaborated on his eyebrow-raiding comment during his post-fight scrum. He confirmed that he wasn’t at 30% by choice.
“I came in with a lot of different things. There’s just a lot of things that happened throughout the span as you guys know – the fight being moved, fight being cancelled, fight being back on, not knowing if you’re going to fight, if, and, or you’re even gong to fight. There were a lot of different things and I was sick for a long, long time.”
Usman called out Colby Covington with White confirming that that former lightweight champion Rafael dos Anjos was “obviously” next in line to fight Tyron Woodley.
