Kamaru Usman has come to be the very first African UFC champ – Tek Portal

“If Tyron Woodley isn’t going to carry his A-game, it is really going to be a small night,” Usman had claimed about the person who had been welterweight winner since 2016.For Usman, the UFC offers the best arena to showcase his talent for a activity he joined at elite level in 2015. Considering that becoming a member of the UFC, Usman has little by little worked his way up the ranks from rookie to title challenger in the room of just a couple years.Born in Auchi, in the midwestern Edo state of Nigeria, Usman moved to the United States when he was seven, acquiring a enthusiasm for wrestling in high university.
In 2010, he won a nationwide title even though in college at the College of Nebraska at Kearney. He hasn’t seemed back again given that and now has a document 14 wins and just a single loss in his mixed martial arts vocation, also recognised as MMA.
A battling opportunity

Like quite a few Nigerian fighters in advance of him, Usman is nicknamed the ‘Nigerian Nightmare,’ and is a person of all around five Africans in the UFC.
Usman’s increase has also brought consideration from some pals in substantial locations, notably, Dana White, president of the UFC, who explained in a latest interview: “I was impressed. I am telling you, I want to see him battle Woodley now. I want to see the Woodley struggle. That is what I want,” he mentioned in a write-up-combat job interview with Fox Athletics.
On Saturday, he acquired his desire in the eagerly-awaited showdown with the American fighter Woodley.
In a CNN interview, Usman suggests he thinks he could be welterweight champion by now if he had gotten the prospect to fight Woodley as planned in September previous year.
Usman was penciled in as the backup for a fight in between Woodley and English challenger Darren Until in The us final calendar year, amid fears that Until would not make the bodyweight demanded to fight in the division.
Usman states he went on a grueling schooling camp and a strict eating plan to prepare for the prospective fight.
In the stop, the battle never occurred as Till designed the excess weight just a working day right before his bout with Woodley, which he eventually shed.
Although upset not to get the possibility, Usman is sanguine about the practical experience.
“I think in destiny. I believe in karma. I feel in factors like that,’ he suggests.
“I was prepared and fully waiting to take whole chance of that, but it didn’t materialize, so hey, it is really not in God’s prepare for me. Maybe God desired me to get it a particular other way, but I am gonna do every thing in my electrical power to make absolutely sure that I’m a champion.”
Usman went into the bout with Woodley in great form immediately after dominating Rafael dos Anjos, a previous light-weight winner, above five rounds in December.
Challenging enjoy expanding up in Nigeria

Usman believes rising up in Nigeria has been instrumental in his constant rise to the prime of his activity.
“I bear in mind the streets, I don’t forget owning to wander what seemed like miles and miles and miles to fetch water from the wells with my grandmother,” he suggests.
“I lived with my grandmother for a year when I was pretty younger, and even to this day when I tell my mom activities that took spot, she can not think that I can recall that far.
“I remember a whole lot of it. I remember the hard perform that my spouse and children went through just to go on to are living the way of life that we have been dwelling, which was not by any means a great life-style.
“It was just an incredible life-style to instill selected values in a little one.”
Preventing family members

Usman is not the only fighter in his relatives. His youthful brother, Mohammed, is also a fighter on the MMA heavyweight circuit with three wins and a loss to his identify.
When Usman is just not preparing for profession-defining fights, he attends to household responsibilities these types of as searching immediately after his daughter and taking her to daycare.
“You have to be ready to discover a equilibrium [with your family],” he states.
While the odds were stacked in opposition to him, Usman fought to the conclusion on Saturday to make historical past since that is the only way he is aware of how to.