Kamaru Usman believes he can take on UFC champion Belal Muhammad in a title fight right now and reclaim his belt.
But Usman (20-4 MMA, 15-3 UFC), a veteran fighter in the genre, knows a title opportunity is unlikely after three straight losses, especially after those two came against Leon Edwards, who just lost his welterweight belt to Muhammad (24-3 MMA, 15-3 UFC) in the main event of UFC 304 on Saturday in Manchester, England.
Usman announced his situation on the latest episode of the “Pound-4-Pound Podcast” with co-host Henry Cejudo, saying the more likely scenario is that he would fight a top-ranked challenger like Shavkat Rahmonov or Jack Della Maddalena to prove he's worthy of taking on Muhammad.
“You want the perspective of 'The Nigerian Nightmare' Kamaru Usman? Give me plenty of time. I'll get the welterweight belt back by the end of the year or early next year. 100 percent,” Usman said. “But if you're talking to a guy who's on the outside looking in and seeing the whole situation and trying to please everybody, sure, it's, 'Yeah, he lost to Leon Edwards,' but people get amnesia pretty quickly. They forget that I was winning almost 24 minutes of the fight until the lightning struck and Leon landed that kick. And when he landed that kick, I think it screwed him up to the point that he forgot, 'Hey, I was just as dominated.' Now he feels like, 'I'm the champion, I can do anything.' No, he's got to actually go out there and fix those mistakes, and obviously he didn't fix them.”
“But because of that loss, I think UFC is now thinking as a company: 'OK, we want to give Usman a fight and show the fans that he's back and show us that he's back and that he deserves a chance to get the title back. And to do that, we need to bring in a top-class fighter for him. That could be Shavkat Rahmonov, that could be JDM.'”
Usman hasn't fought since October, when he lost a majority decision to Khamzat Chimaev in a middleweight bout at UFC 294. He appears set to return to welterweight for his next bout and is ranked No. 3 in USA Today Sports/MMA Junkie's latest rankings.
For more on the card, check out MMA Junkie's UFC 304 event hub.
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