Nigeria’s Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) world welterweight champion, Kamaru Usman has defeated Jorge Masvidal to retain his belt in a unanimous decision yn the early hours of Sunday, megasportsarena.com reports.
The victory means Usman equals Khabib Nurmagomedov’s record of 12 consecutive UFC wins with points victory, and it came on the same night that Alexander Volkanovski also retained his featherweight title with a split decision win over Max Holloway.
Many pundits had already predicted ahead of the fight that Usman was going to try to attack Masvidal on ‘Flash Forum,’ the main event of UFC 251 on Fight Island in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
So it turned out to be, as ‘The Nigerian Nightmare,’ a former national collegiate wrestling champ, who had a full training camp, dominated Masvidal, who took the fight on only six days’ notice and admitted afterwards that he was not prepared specifically for any big bout like the one he got on Saturday.
The result, then, was hardly surprising, as their grudge match turned into a one-sided beat down, with Usman’s wrestling and clinch style helping him take control of proceedings and he rolled to a unanimous decision victory over Masvidal, who accepted the fight last Sunday after the original challenger, Gilbert Burns had to pull out because of a positive test for COVID-19.
Judges scored it 50-45 twice and 49-46 for the champion, who won his 16th fight in a row overall and his 12th in succession in the UFC, giving Masvidal only the first round, but they embraced after the fight and seemed to end their feud.
Usman, who scored five takedowns and had 10:06 of clinch control time, hailed Masvidal, as he said afterwards: “‘Gamebred’ is the biggest, baddest dude out there right now. I had to take six years to prepare for him on six days’ notice.
“I know a lot was made on him taking the fight on short notice, but he was preparing. All these guys are preparing for one guy, and that’s me at the top of the mountain. I had to make a mental shift. I trained for Gilbert and I had a completely different game plan.
“I had a lot of little things coming into the fight, but those are no excuse. ‘Gamebred’ is tough and he showed it out there. He took a lot of big elbows down there on the bottom but he kept getting up, kept fighting and didn’t quit.”
