‘Five Rounds, I Think I Stop Him’

Usman leaves Abu Dhabi with another loss but a renewed belief in his ability to compete at the highest levels of the sport.

Kamaru Usman stepped in on less than two weeks notice a weight class up to challenge Khamzat Chimaev at UFC 294. It was a ballsy move, but it ended up working out okay for the former welterweight champion and pound-for-pound king. While he didn’t emerge victorious, he recovered from a bad first round and nearly forced a draw against “Borz.”

In the end, judges handed Chimaev the win via a majority decision (see the full scorecards here).

During a media scrum following the fight, Usman faulted himself for starting slow and allowing Chimaev to control him to the point where all three judges gave him a 10-8 round.

“First round I didn’t do the best job of defending and really starting to neutralize him,” Usman said. “That’s really the difference between I’m used to fighting five rounds. In a three round fight you can’t give up the first round like that because you don’t have many more rounds to pull yourself back into the fight. A miscalculation on my part, and it’s a tough one. He’s a young hungry bull.”

“Me coming off the couch in ten days, I’m still — I gotta trust myself more. I haven’t lost it, I still believe I’m best in the world. I just didn’t start fast enough to give myself the time to really get into the fight and find my finish.”

“The Nigerian Nightmare” went on to suggest he should have demanded the fight be five rounds.

“That’s my fault. I feel like that’s a five round fight. It shouldn’t have been a three round fight,” he said. “But it is what it is, you know? I can’t cry about spilled milk, as they say. We go back and we re-assess and we come back. Five rounds, I think I stop him.”

“He is as advertised, I give him his props,” Kamaru said of Khamzat. “But you tell me, does it look like I’m done? I came off the couch in ten days and that’s what you got. Give me five rounds and it’s a different story.”

Usman was very open and honest with his feelings, admitting he was in a strange headspace following the end of his title reign via two defeats to Leon Edwards.

“You suffer two losses and you kind of fall into a place where you don’t necessarily know where you’re at,” he said. “And if there’s anything I learned about myself tonight, it’s I can trust myself again. You fall into a place where you start to question or doubt yourself a little bit. And if anything, I proved to myself tonight that I need to trust myself, get back to my roots, get working again. And I do definitely think I can be champion.”

Which champion, though? Welterweight or middleweight? For now, Usman is hoping to parlay his solid performance against Chimaev into a middleweight run.

“There’s guys out there. Du Plessis is out there,” he said. “I think a fight like that and I’m still right there. And I would love this fight back. I would love to fight him again. Obviously him fighting for the title, and me and Du Plessis co-main. UFC 300, I’m up for that.”