Kamaru Usman has been a dominant champion since winning the title from Tyron Woodley. He has since defeated Colby Covington, Gilbert Burns, and Jorge Masvidal. Usman is going to fight contenders such as Colby Covington and Leon Edwards in a rematch since he has beaten most of the top contenders.
And it seems Kamaru Usman is interested to challenge himself outside of the welterweight division. Recently, he has called out Jake Paul for a boxing fight. He has also shown interest in moving up to the middleweight division to capture his second UFC title. However, that is not going to happen since the current middleweight champion, Israel Adesanya is not someone Usman is keen on fighting.
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Kamaru Usman has repeatedly said that he will not fight Israel Adesanya in UFC. Usman claims that he would rather have two African champions across two divisions in UFC than one champion. However, boxing legend Mike Tyson does not like the idea of Usman avoiding a clash with Israel Adesanya.
In a recent podcast with Mike Tyson, Ali Abdelaziz opened up about the future possibilities for Usman and stated:
“If Marvin Vettori wins, he would fight Kamaru. I don’t know Kamaru does not want to fight Israel because they are both friends from Nigeria, so I don’t get involved. But Marvin Vettori is not his friend, Kamaru can go up and fight Marvin Vettori for the title.”
Mike Tyson and Henry Cejudo disagrees with Kamaru Usman
But, Mike Tyson believes that Usman vs Adesanay would be a huge fight in UFC and both of them can make some serious money from that fight. Tyson stated:
“If he is my friend and he really cares about me and I really care about you, we should fight and make some money. Well, how are we gonna make money if we don’t fight? That’s that golden match right there.”
Even former UFC bantamweight champion, Henry Cejudo agreed with Mike Tyson and stated that Kamaru Usman and Israel Adesanya should fight each other.
There is a possibility that Usman might finally agree to fight Adesanya for the middleweight title. The trend of winning a second belt in UFC has intrigued almost every champion in recent times. And it won’t be insane to assume that Israel Adesanya might remain the middleweight champion for a long time.
If that happens Usman would have to face Adesanya if he wants to achieve the glory of being a two-division champion and cement his legacy as one of the GOATs. But, at the same time, it’s certainly commendable how loyal Kamaru Usman is to the first-ever UFC Nigerian middleweight champion, Israel Adesanya.
