Sounds like the “old fart” is starting to stink up the joint.
Former UFC welterweight champion, Kamaru Usman, has been campaigning for the next 170-pound title shot. “The Nigerian Nightmare” had a little help from current division champion, Islam Makhachev, since both fighters are managed by Ali Abdelaziz. Heck, even the folks at Paramount were teasing a potential showdown.
So what’s the hold up?
“I really don’t know,” Usman said on his Pound 4 Pound podcast. “The Islam fight was obviously what I wanted and what I felt would have been great not just for me, not just for Islam, but would have been great for the company, would have been great for the world to see that. For some reason, we’ve had conversations, but Hunter Campbell feels differently and Hunter Campbell is like, ‘Maybe not,’ he wants to go a different way. We don’t know yet. They haven’t come out and said Islam is going to get this guy or Islam’s going with me, but it’s been a tumultuous back and forth with getting that done.”
Choosing Usman would mean overlooking other deserving contenders (like this undefeated phenom).
“Other things were presented to me, like potentially ‘DDP’ was presented to me or other guys,” Usman said. “Listen, there’s one thing about me, when they call and they say this guy or that guy or this guy, I don’t go, ‘Uh, maybe, maybe, maybe,’ no, I say yes. This is the thing with me is it has to be meaningful. At this point, it has to be meaningful. I’m not just here just to fight to fight. It has to be meaningful. If it gets me to the title that I want, that’s what I want.”
Hopefully UFC can pull the trigger on Islam’s next fight in time for this landmark event.
