By Victor Kanayo
Nigerian fighter Kamaru Usman has now lost three fights in a row after succumbing to another opponent Khamzat Chimaev at the rmiddleweight session on Saturday.
The latest fight lasted all three rounds.
Turvy-Tupsy Moment For Usman
In the first round Chimaev’s advantage was tangible that he sat on his opponent’s back for almost the whole round.
However, in the next two rounds everything was not so clear, although it seemed that two out of three referees favoured Chimaev for the first round: 29-27, 29-27, 28-28.
For the legendary Kamaru Usman, this was the third consecutive defeat. Before that, he lost twice to Leon Edwards in the battle for the title. The Nigerian’s last win was almost two years ago: in November 2021.
It should be noted that Usman for the sake of this fight changed weight category and received an offer to fight with Chimaev only 10 days before going into the octagon.
This is due to the injury of Paulo Costa, who was supposed to oppose Chimaev.
The 36-year-old had lost back-to-back title fights against Brit Leon Edwards in the welterweight division and had to move up to the middleweight to face Chimaev in a there-rounder.
Like Adesanya, Unlike Usman
Fellow Nigerian-born UFC fighter Israel Adesanya has since announced that he will take a break after losing shockingly to his opponent few weeks ago.
Whether Usman will toe same path remains to be seen.
