- Kamaru Usman insists he is not bothered much by short notice fights
- “The Nigerian Nightmare” recalled how he came up with the decision to step in as a replacement at UFC 294
After Paulo Costa pulled out from UFC 294, Kamaru Usman stepped in right away and took the fight with Khamzat Chimaev on short notice. While some say it would be a different scenario for “The Nigerian Nightmare,” Usman himself begged to differ.
It’s not an uncharted territory for Kamaru
Speaking to TMZ Sports, the former welterweight champ insisted that short notice fights are not new to him as he had already been in the same situation when his original opponent, Gilbert Burns was replaced by Jorge Masvidal at UFC 251 six days before fight night. The only difference this time is that Usman is the replacement.
“Obviously, being put in this position to have to fly across the world nine days and make it happen you know, it’s nothing new to me. People forget I did it in less than six days before so ain’t nothing new. Fighters fight,” Usman pointed out.
Kamaru made sure he wanted to do it
Usman also described how his decision to take the Chimaev fight came about. According to “The Nigerian Nightmare,” he didn’t choose to get carried away by the excitement and waited overnight to see if he really wanted to do it.
“When I got the call, I think I just left training. Of course, this is the thing with me, this is my job, this is what I do. I’m a professional so it’s not like, ‘Oh, I don’t have a fight, I don’t do anything’ you know, so I leave training and then I get the call from Ali [Abdelaziz] and I’m immediately, I’m excited but that’s where you are, you’re excited of what potentially could be, it’s like I’m excited right now about maybe winning the jackpot of a billion dollars in the lottery, you know. So, I’m excited… I call my coaches and I throw the idea at them and no one talked me out of it. So, I’m like, okay. I said, let me sleep on it. Cause I don’t want to be hasty and do something unintelligent, so let me sleep on it. And I woke up the next day with let’s get ready. So I texted Ali and said, ‘Let’s do this,’” Usman revealed.
Usman will hope to finally put an end to his losing streak, having gone winless in his last two title fights against Leon Edwards. It is yet to be known what lies ahead of Usman and Chimaev, considering the bout will be at middleweight but both of them are welterweight contenders.
Check out the full interview below:
