UFC 278 Preview
The UFC will be invading the Vivint Arena in Salt Lake City, Utah on Saturday August 20th. The main event will be for the welterweight title between champion and pound for pound great Kamaru Usman and #2 Leon Edwards. This fight will be a rematch from a meeting in 2015 in which Usman won by unanimous decision.
Usman has not lost a fight since his second as a professional fighter in 2013. The Nigerian has won 19 straight fights and is 15-0 in the UFC. He has successfully defended the welterweight title five times since winning the belt in 2019 and he has entered the conversation for greatest welterweight in UFC history. He is coming off a unanimous decision victory in a rematch with Colby Covington at UFC 268 in November.
To prove he is the best; the champion believes he needs to be respected. He said, “A lot of times nowadays, everyone’s throwing around this, ‘G.O.A.T., greatest of all time...’ That’s relative. For me, what I want, and this is kind of why I got into the sport ... I’m just a competitive guy. I got into sports and I just realized it was something burning inside me that I wanted to compete and compete. I wanted to best that guy. This is the ultimate, mono-e-mono, the sport to do it.”
Usman continued, “With that being said with respect to that, I want to be respected. So, when I get in there and I bested everyone, I want you to show me that respect. So, if I bested everyone in my division then I said I will skip one and I just want to prove to you — everyone says pound-for-pound, but that’s just kind of a scenario. You just throw that out, ‘If they were the same weight class, could this guy best that guy?’ And I want to prove that. I want to be able to do that. No one’s ever done it. If I can do that, hey, you put whatever title you want to put on it but ultimately, I want the respect.”
The 35-year-old is not overlooking Edwards despite already having a victory over him. “There’s just something about Leon,” Usman said. “I respect him so much, he’s a great competitor, tough guy. He’s grinding through it. I’ve said it before, when I’m inside that octagon, I’m the judge, jury, and I will be the executioner. When he said those things, boom. It stuck with me and it’s there to where I replay the whole first fight. Replay his attitude, his mood, his demeanor, and hey, he gave me a little shove in that first fight. I’m still not over it. And I don’t feel like I got enough in that first fight. There’s tons of motivation in this fight to go out there and do what I do.”
While Usman moving up two weight classes is certainly ambitious and interesting to think about, UFC President Dana White thinks it is a bad idea. “That’s crazy, he’s never said that to me,” White said. “But I mean, when you look at those guys, you’re looking at (Jiri) Prochazka, Glover (Teixeira), Jan (Blachowicz), Magomed (Ankalaev) ... I mean, these guys are fucking monsters. Yeah, I think that’s a bad idea. The guys at middleweight are big. I mean when you start talking about (Jared) Cannonier, (Robert) Whittaker, (Marvin) Vettori, Israel (Adesanya), those are scary guys at that weight. (Alex) Pereira ... even (Derek) Brunson — you’ve got a guy like Brunson who can wrestle too, you know what I mean? Tough one.”
Despite what White thinks, if there is one fighter in the UFC that continues to hush his critics and prove people wrong, it is Usman. With each challenge he faced in defending his title, pundits found reasons for Usman to lose but in each he displayed new tricks and he used his old tricks to dominate his opponents.
Usman has key wins in his career over Colby Covington (twice), Jorge Masvidal (twice), Gilbert Burns, Tyron Woodley, Rafael Dos Anjos and Demian Maia. While he did defeat Edwards back in 2015, he and Edwards both are different fighters now, so the fans should expect a different fight this time around.
Since losing to Usman, Edwards has gone 9-0-1 and most recently defeated Nate Diaz in a high-profile fight at UFC 263 last June. Edwards is one of the unluckiest fighters in the UFC whether it is injuries or fight cancellations, but all that can finally be put behind him as he finally gets his first crack at a title.
Dana White recently stated that if Edwards wins on Saturday, fans can expect a trilogy fight between he and Usman. Edwards agrees, “For sure – 100 percent,” Edwards said. “He’s been a dominant champion, so naturally in sport in boxing or MMA, when you defend the belt a couple times or been dominant, you get a rematch. So, I definitely envision doing it again.”
While the British fighter knows a third fight will be looming, he wants to be a busy champion. “I want to be an active champion,” Edwards said. “I don’t want to be once a year. I want to be active. I’m only 30 years old, so I’m going into my prime now. The more fights I have, the better it would be for me.”
Both fighters have gotten better, but Edwards isn’t that impressed with Usman’s championship run. “All this pound-for-pound talk, I don’t see it,” Edwards said. “I don’t see it in his fights, I don’t see it in his techniques. He’s a very good fighter, he has improved. I’m not going to into this flight blind thinking he’s another wrestler, but I just don’t see it.”
Edwards had a good first round in the first fight with Usman, having great success in the exchanges on the feet. It was Usman’s wrestling which turned to ground and pound that overwhelmed Edwards in the second and third round. Usman has showed drastic improvements in his striking so for Edwards to gain the advantage in a five-round fight, he is going to have to find a way to neutralize Usman’s wrestling and surprise him on the feet.
Aside from Diaz, Edwards has key victories in his career over Rafael Dos Anjos, Gunnar Nelson, Donald Cerrone, Bryan Barbarena and Vicente Luque. The Usman that reigns as the current champion is most certainly the toughest challenge of his career thus far.
The rest of the main card:
Middleweight - #6 Paulo Costa vs Luke Rockhold
Bantamweight - #3 Jose Aldo vs #6 Merab Dvalishvili
Women’s Bantamweight – Wu Yanan vs Lucie Pudilova
Light Heavyweight – Tyson Pedro vs Harry Hunsucker
ESPN + Prelims:
Heavyweight - #11 Marcin Tybura vs #13 Alexandr Romanov
Lightweight – Leanardo Santos vs Jared Gordon
Featherweight – Sean Woodson vs Luis Saldana
Wmoen’s Flyweight – Miranda Maverick vs Shanna Young
Early Prelims:
Welterweight – AJ Fletcher vs Ange Loosa
Flyweight - #11 Amir Albazi vs Francisco Figueiredo
Bantamweight – Aoriqileng vs Jay Perrin
Flyweight – Daniel Da Silva vs Victor Altamirano
