At UFC 278 in August, Kamaru Usman lost the title bout against Leon Edwards in a stunning knockout. With less than a minute remaining, he dropped the welterweight title.
Edwards gained his revenge in the rematch after losing to Usman by a unanimous decision at UFC on FOX 17 in December 2015 and joined Michael Bisping as the second British titleholder in UFC history. Edwards also stopped Usman from tying Anderson Silva’s record for most consecutive octagon victories.
For his first title defence, Edwards will face Usman in a rematch since their series is tied at one match apiece. However, he acknowledges that a grudge match with Jorge Masvidal is still on his mind.
Before Usman, Leon had contested Belal Muhammad. In the first few seconds of the second round of the main event of UFC Fight Night in Las Vegas, Edwards unintentionally poked Belal Muhammad in the right eye. Muhammad immediately collapsed in agony as blood began to flow from his eye.
In the fight, Belal took a clean leg kick from Leon. The same type of kick knocked Usman out. Due to which, speculations were made as to who has a better chin. Considering the former champion failed to take it unlike Belal.
However, this saga of MMA math has been proven to fallacious. It is acknowledged that the head kick was similar in motion but there are various other factors to consider before coming into an informed conclusion. Their respective fights were completely different in nature since it halted in extremely variant end.
His fight against Belal ended in the second round while the kick happened in the first. In case of Usman it ended in the fifth round. This fact changes many dynamics considering Usman by then would have taken some shots by Leon with probably abated his stabilisation to be on his feet as he would had it been in the first round. Needless to mention, in the 24 minutes he attempted to take Edwards down numerous times which takes a toll on your complete body.
Most importantly, the feint on which Leon successfully got Usman’s guard down was planned well in-advance by his coach and him. They scrutinised the tendencies of Usman and understood that feinting on Edward’s backhand might let Usman lean into his side which would have been ideal for him to throw a perfect head kick and luckily for Edwards he did just that.
Fans react to Belal taking a clean kick from Leon Edwards
Fans always welcome conversations of comparing fighters and their attributes. Even their chin, which may seem highly speculative. Needless to say, it does encourage fun conversations. The same is evident when the chins of Usman and Belal were compared. Here are few interesting reactions:
Belal ate the kick that knocked out Usman. Just saying… pic.twitter.com/eS3oEju210
— Aj (@AjDuxche) October 13, 2022
“Usman also leaned into that kick with his whole-ass face”
“Because he had already fallen asleep like we all had.”
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