Kamaru Usman reacts to Belal Muhammad dethroning Leon Edwards at UFC 304: “This was textbook”

Kamaru Usman is reacting to Belal Muhammad dethroning Leon Edwards at UFC 304.

UFC 304 took place this past Saturday, July 27th at the Co-op Live in Manchester, England.

The main event featured current champion Leon Edwards (22-4 MMA) going up against Belal Muhammad (24-3 MMA) in a welterweight bout.

The result was Muhammad defeating ‘Rocky’ by unanimous decision to win the welterweight belt.

Kamaru Usman shared his insight into the fight during a recent episode of the ‘Pound 4 Pound ‘ podcast:

“Now, I fought Leon three times. I would say for a majority of all those fights, Leon put his back up against the cage. Well, he didn’t put his back there, I put him there up against the cage. You pressure him, you pressure him, you pressure him, you take away his space and Leon just doesn’t necessarily know how to fight there when you take away his space. He wants to create the space so he backs up and when he backs up, next thing you know, he puts himself up against the cage.”

Usman did fight Edwards three times, in December of 2015 where it was Usman winning via unanimous decision; in August of 2022 at UFC 278 where it would be Edwards coming out the victor by KO and finally in March of 2023 at UFC 286, which would see ‘Rocky’ defeat Usman once again this time by majority decision.

Continuing the former welterweight champion shared:

“Now, when you fight a guy like myself and a guy like Belal Muhammad that can change levels on you, hey, this is what you’re going to get. We’re going to change levels, we’re going to wrap our arms around your legs and we’re going to take you down every time and that’s what I did in almost every one of my fights but Leon over the time got smart enough to know, ‘Hey, I can use the cage to my advantage to stand up or to keep myself upright and make it harder for people to keep me down,’ and that’s what he was doing.”

Concluding ‘The Nigerian Nightmare’ finished with (h/t MMANews):

“But, it’s almost like he counters what I do which is put him up against the fence and take him down by using the fence to stand back up and stay upright but then here comes the counter, the counter-counter shall I say, in Belal Muhammad in understanding that, ‘Hey, he uses the fence very well to stand back up so when he does stand back up, you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to change levels back again and I’m going to dump him either on his head or I’m going to dump him on his back again’, and this was textbook.”

Do you agree with Kamaru Usman’s analogy of the bout between Edwards and Muhammad?

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