Izuchukwu Okosi
Self styled ‘Nigerian nightmare’ Kamaru Usman in the early hours of Sunday morning lost his UFC Welterweight title to Jamaican-born Leon Edwards reports Prime Business Africa.
The defeat was the flrst in his fighting career for the Nigerian who before the fight posted comments on his social media handles that he “will beat somebody’s pikin again.”
Join our WhatsApp ChannelUsman was leading in three of the four previous rounds and was in fact 50 seconds away from victory before a powerful kick to his chin from Edwards fell him to the ground.
Usman came around and mouthed: ‘You’ve got to be kidding me’.
It brings an end to his astonishing reign as champion and is the first taste of defeat in the UFC for the Benin, Edo state born fighter.
On becoming the new UFC welterweight champion, Edwards said, “I feel great. They all said I couldn’t do it, they all said I couldn’t do it. Look at me now.
“It doesn’t matter. From the trenches. I’m built like this. I go until the final bell. Pound-for-pound, head shot, dead.
“I told you we could win a belt from the UK, now look at me. There is no pound-for-pound, the belt belongs to nobody.
“I told you, mum, I’d change our lives. World champion, world champion, look at me now. I was born in Jamaica with nothing. I lived in a wood shack with a zinc roof.”
Izuchukwu Okosi is a Nigerian sports and entertainment journalist with two decades of experience in the media industry having begun his media journey in 2002 as an intern at Mundial Sports International (MSI) and Africa Independent Television (AIT), owners of Daar Communications Plc.
