- Michael Bisping emphasized Kamaru Usman’s wrestling will still be his biggest advantage over Leon Edwards at UFC 286
- “The Count” thinks that wrestlers who trained and competed in America will always be better than European wrestlers
Michael Bisping sees Kamar Usman’s superb wrestling will get the job done in his title fight rematch with Leon Edwards this weekend at UFC 286.
A huge advantage
Speaking on his YouTube channel, the former UFC middleweight champion spoke highly of the wrestling skills “The Nigerian Nightmare.” According to Bisping, history and numbers show that out of everything else in Usman’s arsenal, it’s the wrestling that Edwards could never match.
“Reason number one, is the wrestling of Kamara Usman. It is top notch. In fact, it’s so good that last time out, Leon Edwards became the only person in Kamaru’s career to ever take Kamaru Usman down. He had 100% takedown defense until last time Leon tripped him, took his back, mounted him, all the rest of it… It’s very impressive. He was the only man to do so in his UFC career but on the flipside, when it comes to the wrestling, Usman took Edwards down five times out of 12 attempts and over two fights, Usman has taken Leon down 11 times versus, of course, the one time that I just spoke about. So, yeah wrestling I mean, he’s one of the best to ever do it and to incorporate it into mixed martial arts, and Usman does such a great job of using the wrestling to set up the strikes, and the strikes to set up the wrestling,” Bisping explained.
“The wrestling… that is the biggest threat for Leon Edwards,” he added.
All Euro fighters couldn’t handle it
Bisping further explained why Edwards, as well as every European fighter, should always be wary of great wrestlers honed in North America.
“Not only for Leon Edwards, for British fighters, slash European fighters in general, because unlike North America, we do not have that collegiate wrestling base like Russia, like Bulgaria, like a lot of countries in the world. The UK? Yes, they have wrestling but it’s not like it is in America. Simple as that,” he continued.
Edwards and Usman will settle the score in their trilogy match at UFC 286. With just days away from fight night, “The Nigerian Nightmare” still insists that he is way better than “Rocky” and he only got hit by a haymaker head kick.
On the other hand, Edwards reckoned that Usman hasn’t shown anything extraordinary heading into their third fight.
