It is nothing new for fighters to compete with an injury, but it is still crazy to hear. Recently, Kamaru Usman revealed that despite dominating the fight, he beat Jorge Masvidal with a pretty seriously broken nose.
When Usman took on Masvidal, he was actually supposed to be facing Gilbert Burns. However when Gilbert contracted COVID-19, the UFC was forced to find a replacement, and Jorge took the fight on short notice.
In the end, the BMF champ would be controlled against the cage for the vast majority of 25 minutes. Kamaru was able to defend his title for the second time without surrendering a single round.
View this post on Instagram
Kamaru Usman Had A Shattered Nose
Some people felt that Kamaru Usman was a bit lackluster in his dominant win over Jorge Masvidal. The complaint was that while it was clear who won the fight, there just was not a lot of action throughout.
However the welterweight champion explained in a recent interview, that he went into that fight with a severely broken nose. So even though he won the fight, he was doing his best to avoid getting hit in the face.
“Two weeks before, (my nose was) shattered,” Usman said.
“A lot of people haven’t dealt with a broken nose. When anything comes close to your face, you’re trying to defend and not get that nose hit.
“There are a couple of guys here who hit pretty hard. We can blame that one on Carrington Banks and Justin Gaethje.”
As for his performance, Usman is just as frustrated as everyone else. He feels that he did not get to show any of the areas of his skills that he had been working on.
“I was unhappy because as much as I put into preparing for fights, I basically was just on autopilot that fight,” he said.
“I’m way better than that. I have way more tools and skills to display than what I showed, because out there, I beat him with stuff I’ve been doing for five years.”
In fact, Usman is not opposed to the idea of having a rematch with Masvidal down the line, so they can both be at their best. He hopes to get a finish if they do meet again.
“It’s me versus me out there. So, there’s a potential of that fight happening again if he works himself there, but I want to do it again because I want to put an exclamation on it. I want to finish him. I want to impress myself.”
For now, Kamaru Usman has his hands full with a rescheduled fight with Gilbert Burns. Hopefully he goes into this fight healthy, because it has the potential for being a tough fight.
