Kamaru Usman talks willingness to save UFC 249, fighting during a pandemic and more
UFC welterweight champion Kamaru Usman tells Yahoo Sports’ Kevin Iole that he offered to fight Tony Ferguson or Jorge Masvidal at UFC 249 when he heard Khabib Nurmagomedov was stuck in Russia.
Video Transcript
KEVIN IOLE: Hey, everybody. I am Kevin Iole from Yahoo Sports, and my next guest is one of the dominant new fighters on the scene, a guy, if you saw his title fight against Tyron Woodley last year, you will know what I mean when I say dominant. Not shocked that Kamaru Usman defeated Tyron Woodley. I was stunned by the one-sided nature of that fight. Kamaru, how you doing, pal?
KAMARU USMAN: I'm doing well. How are you, Kevin?
KEVIN IOLE: I am awesome. You have now two really big back-to-back wins, of course, coming off that win that put a little smile on your face over Colby Covington, and I think a lot of people's faces. You know, Colby was kind of doing his best to get under people's skin. Did it feel good in that fight to be able to not just win the fight but to stop him?
KAMARU USMAN: Yeah, it felt good, partly because of, you know, nowadays we live in this nature to where it's the guy that's barking is barking for all that attention, and they did it in all the wrong ways. He was barking as loud as possible to try to get me rattled, to make me, you know, come out of myself and come out of, you know, my character.
And, you know, it felt good to go in and show him that it doesn't matter what you do. At the end of the day, when we step in there, it's you and me, and I will prevail. And getting that done in the fashion that I got it done was extremely satisfying.
KEVIN IOLE: Was-- you know, in the early part of the fight, were you surprised at how good he was? I mean, I was a little surprised at his boxing skills. Seemed like his hands were better than I thought they might be.
KAMARU USMAN: I wouldn't say I was surprised. I would say it shocked me his willingness to engage with me--
KEVIN IOLE: Right.
KAMARU USMAN: --in that fashion. So, yeah, it shocked me, and it took me a little bit to kind of adjust to what he was doing and his game plan. But once I adjusted, we saw what the result was.
KEVIN IOLE: Right.
KAMARU USMAN: But, you know, he's-- you know, I always knew he was tough. That's something that-- and I said it leading up to the fight. You know, that's a fight that I had made friends with in my head. You know, I knew that that was going to be a tough test at some point down the line. You know, we were both the most dominant wrestlers in the division, and so I had made friends with that fight years before that. And so, you know, I was OK with any way that that fight would have went.
KEVIN IOLE: You know, we're sitting in this weird situation where nobody knows if or when they're going to fight, what's going on, who they're going to fight, where they're going to fight. Probably as we're recording this, Dana White is somewhere trying to call the president and figure out what he can do. It's nuts.
I know you had offered to step up and fight at UFC 249 when the news came out that it looked like Khabib Nurmagomedov was not going to be able to fight. Fill us in. Where does that stand? That was yesterday that you said you would be willing to fight. Where does it stand today a little over 24 hours later?
KAMARU USMAN: Actually, this is-- Kevin, this all took place last week. So, you know, like I said, I had an inclination that it was trouble with the Khabib fight because Khabib was now stuck in Russia.
KEVIN IOLE: Right.
KAMARU USMAN: And so he was doing everything possible to try and get out and get back here and get this fight going, but just like you mentioned, we don't know where the fight's going to take place. We don't know what's going to happen. So everything is kind of up in the air. I know Dana White is doing everything physically possible to try to make this happen as well.
But, you know, so once I kind of had a, you know, inclination that that was going to happen, I-- it just kind of-- it wasn't sitting right with me because, you know, first of all, my-- one of my good friends, you know, who I considered a brother, Francis Ngannou, was just supposed to fight at the end of this month. He was supposed to be fighting last Saturday.
KEVIN IOLE: Right--
KAMARU USMAN: And unfortunately--
KEVIN IOLE: --in what would have been a hell of a fight.
KAMARU USMAN: I know, an amazing fight. And that fight was postponed, and the card before that was postponed. So, you know, the three cards back to back to back were all postponed. And all these guys-- I started thinking-- you know, I think back to when, you know, I was making my way up the ladder to where you're fighting for-- you know, the newcomer's 10 and 10. You haven't fought in six, seven months.
KEVIN IOLE: Right.
KAMARU USMAN: And this was a fight-- you don't work a job. Everything is into your training and paying for your camps and all that.
KEVIN IOLE: Right.
KAMARU USMAN: And so now these guys are all in the hole as well as, you know, the whole country right now.
KEVIN IOLE: Right. Of course.
KAMARU USMAN: And so I started thinking what could I do to help? Extremely risky. A lot of people was going to say, why would you even do that?
KEVIN IOLE: Right.
KAMARU USMAN: That doesn't even make sense. But I say, you know what? I'm willing to do it because, you know, I'm not fighting Superman.
KEVIN IOLE: Right.
KAMARU USMAN: I'm willing to do it. I'm fighting the guy that I myself and a lot of the country know that is just all hype. So I'm willing to do that. I'm willing to put my belt up to go in and save the event so every one of these guys can eat, even my opponent. I'll let him make a paycheck on top of it as well.
KEVIN IOLE: Your manager, Ali Abdelaziz, had said to me the other day that you would have been interested in Tony Ferguson if they wanted to keep Ferguson in the main event. Now, Tony Ferguson is an unbelievable fighter, and to see you-- to see anybody step up and fight Tony Ferguson on that kind of notice is really an amazing thing. Would the same have held true-- would you have said yes if they said to you OK, Kamaru, we want you to fight Tony Ferguson?
KAMARU USMAN: Yes, and that's actually what I texted-- I told him, hey, Dana, give me Masvidal or give me Ferguson. I'll step in and I'll save this event. I want to put my title on the line. And they said that they were working on it, but I could understand how the Ferguson one was kind of an easy pass for them because--
KEVIN IOLE: Right.
KAMARU USMAN: --and not just them, Tony Ferguson as well. I would have had no reserve and no ill will or anything with him saying no. I mean, this is a guy that has worked tirelessly to remain at the top of that division and to fight for that title. He's earned the right to challenge for that title. And now me stepping in, bigger guy and risking my title and, you know, I understand him saying no. That's not a knock on him in any type of way possible.
And so, you know, I was just-- I understood that, you know, you just did a whole training camp, you know? You spent-- the training camps cost money.
KEVIN IOLE: I know.
KAMARU USMAN: And it's not just-- you know, not just physically, you know, draining yourself. These cost money to be able to eat right and train right. And so, you know, I wanted to, you know, give him an opportunity to earn his check. And so that's why I offered my services, but I completely understand Tony Ferguson saying no. But this other guy, you know, if you want to fight and you say that you're this so-called gangster, you're ready to fight any time, any place, anywhere, let's make the fight happen, you know?
KEVIN IOLE: I understand the rationale. You know, everybody wants to fight. You know, and this is how you make your living, right? I get that.
But putting that aside, let's talk about the sense of anybody fighting during this thing when every other sport is down. All the experts-- you know, yesterday Dr. Fauci said from the National Institute of Health, what, there could be a couple hundred thousand deaths in the US and all this. We're still learning about this virus.
And even from a presentation standpoint, if you were to fight on April 18 and start working now compared to if you were going to fight in a normal situation, the quality of the fight would be better, wouldn't it? So, you know, when you look at those negatives out there, you know, would you say, hey, maybe we are smarter just to say no and let's wait until everything is back to normal, whenever that might be?
KAMARU USMAN: I mean, absolutely. Like, you know, to know that there's no deadly virus floating around out there and you have a full camp to get yourself in shape mind, body, and spirit, and all of the above, of course that's a goal. That's what everybody wants. But I understand the situation as it is. I understand that there's a ton of people that-- you know, that are lacking, that need entertainment.
And that's just one aspect of it. That's probably the least aspect [INAUDIBLE].
KEVIN IOLE: Right, correct.
KAMARU USMAN: There's probably, what, 26 guys that are going to be on that card, maybe even more.
KEVIN IOLE: Need their paydays.
KAMARU USMAN: 26 guys-- yeah, that need that. And I understand when I was making 15 and 15 and 10 and 10. You know, I didn't fight for five months, and now I'm banking on this fight, and then all of a sudden there's no fight, and there's no telling when there's going to be fights again. And on top of it, three cards has already been postponed.
KEVIN IOLE: Right.
KAMARU USMAN: So those guys need fights. So when are you [INAUDIBLE]? When are you going to fight again? No one knows that. And so to be able to go in and actually just kind of save those guys and get them a paycheck, that was a big deciding factor for me to step in then.
KEVIN IOLE: I want to ask you something, not fighting, but it was kind of a strange situation. UFC 246 was going on and I all of a sudden saw tweets coming from your account. And I'm like, I know this is not Kamaru. So I actually texted during the fight. I texted Ali and I texted Dana White saying, hey, I think Usman's account has been hacked here, you know, just to let them know.
So obviously it was found out that that had happened. Did any damage occur to you as a result of that? Did you lose any money or, you know, did you have any identity theft or anything like that that you've had to deal with?
KAMARU USMAN: It was-- it was starting to get to that point because they had not only gotten into my Twitter. They got into my Instagram. And the crazy thing is they're not the same password. You know, one, it's easy to say, oh, it's the same password so they can just get into anything.
KEVIN IOLE: Right, guess it.
KAMARU USMAN: It's not the same password. Somehow they got into my phone or some way to where, you know, now it's Instagram.
And then, you know, first they went on Twitter, and then they got into my bank accounts--
KEVIN IOLE: Yes.
KAMARU USMAN: --and started kind of screenshotting the balances of those. And then they started buying bitcoins, trying to buy bitcoin from my bank account. You know, thankfully, you know, that requires, I think, maybe like a two-business-day process for them [INAUDIBLE] to go through. And so immediately I called the bank, and they shut down all my accounts. It was a pain in the butt because then I had to go get all-new bank-account details and everything switched over. It took me weeks. It took me weeks. It was a huge pain in the butt to deal with all of that.
KEVIN IOLE: Any idea who did it?
KAMARU USMAN: But thankfully--
KEVIN IOLE: Did they catch the people?
KAMARU USMAN: No. I mean, and you can just-- I had no inclination. Especially with the way that they were tweeting and the things they were tweeting and posting out, it was just-- it was absurd. You know, and I couldn't see it. I had to go on someone's account to try to-- actually I-- from Ali's phone to try to kind of go through because he was right with me as soon as we were approaching the event. We were actually on our way to the event.
KEVIN IOLE: Oh boy.
KAMARU USMAN: And so-- yeah. So I had to go on his account to see what this-- whoever it was was tweeting. But, you know, no clue whatsoever. I mean, it's kind of far fetched for me to call the FBI and say, hey, drop everything that you're doing.
KEVIN IOLE: Right.
KAMARU USMAN: You need to investigate who hacked my account.
KEVIN IOLE: But it was-- you know, it was crazy because they were talking about MMA, so it was like they knew something about MMA. It was like they knew who you were, and they knew who Conor was, and they knew a little bad blood there that Conor described after that fight between the two of you. So it wasn't just some random Russian guy hacking your account.
KAMARU USMAN: Yeah, and that's the crazy-- that was the crazy part about it is, yeah, they knew MMA. But, I mean, obviously if you hacked me, you know who I am--
KEVIN IOLE: Right.
KAMARU USMAN: --and what-- you know. And so it was a crazy situation, and especially the timing of it, that was what was strange to me. And, you know, the big part that was very disturbing is kind of how-- and I understand it was because Conor said something and then, you know-- I mean, at that moment, that was his spotlight. That was his week. Anything that he was saying, it was gold that week.
And he mentioned something that, oh, Ali did that, and it was-- you know, it was unfair because then everyone kind of started pointing fingers at, oh, he hacked my account when he was sitting right next to me. That, you know-- and it was-- it was a bit-- it was a bit unfair. But at the same time, you know, when something like that happens, it raises a lot of suspicion.
KEVIN IOLE: It was crazy. I mean, that was a nutty thing. Well, I'm glad that you got everything straightened out and that you didn't lose, but what a nightmare.
Let's look at the future then. If we assume that you don't fight, you know, in April-- looking like that's probably less and less likely as time goes by. When it comes back, you know, have they given you any indication? Like, do they pick up the schedule the way it was planned? Because I know there was talk that you and Masvidal would fight International Fight Week. So do they still have that planned, or given-- did they tell you, given all the back load of fights, that they may put some of those other fights in there?
KAMARU USMAN: Actually, I have no idea, you know, because now they're the ones that are in the hole. They're the ones who kind of need to facilitate the whole company and get all these fighters fights and things of that nature. So, you know, that's their job. They're the ones who's going to have to worry about that.
But I would imagine that that would still be the fight to make that week-- I mean, arguably probably the most anticipated fight this year right now. And so, you know, that's what I-- that's what I was expecting to happen. But, you know, who knows? They might try to push it to, you know, August or-- who knows how late they want to push it? Yeah.
KEVIN IOLE: I want to run this by you. You know, after you won the title-- and I'm trying to-- I've been trying to think as you were talking who said this to me, but somebody the night that you won the title said to me-- I commented on how impressive you were that night and how much more impressive you'd been than in any other fight you had. And he said, Kamaru is just operating at about 60% or 70%. When he's healthy and he can fight, wait until you see him fight. And I say after watching those last two fights, Woodley and Covington, have we seen the peak Usman, or is there still more to come?
KAMARU USMAN: There's a lot more that could potentially happen and that could come. And I blame a lot of it on how hard I was on my body as a wrestler. You know, I was the type of wrestler who I wanted to be so successful that I was willing to run my body through the ringer in order to be successful. And, you know, that leaves a lot of wear and tear on your body to where when you're young, you don't really think about. You just go, go, go, go.
And that's what I was. I would get up at 6:00 AM to head to the campus every morning and run-- you know, run on-- get on the treadmill and just run or get on the spin bike and just go crazy to try to, you know, keep my condition and my body up before going to classes, before having practice later on that day. And so just doing that and then eventually going to the Olympic Training Center, do what I could there to try to-- because I started wrestling a little later than most guys.
KEVIN IOLE: Right.
KAMARU USMAN: Most guys had been wrestling since they were kids, and I started in high school. So in my mind, I had to do anything possible to potentially try to make up that ground. And partially what that did is just the wear and tear on my body.
And then now coming into MMA, it's like-- I'm like oh my God, if I had my 25-, 26-year-old body while I'm doing this, oh man. Where would I be in this sport? And so it's-- I'm just thankful. I'm thankful for the way that I'm able to still operate. I'm still able to actually step in there and do what I've grown to love. And so, you know, I'm just thankful, but I know that there's a lot more that I could be putting out had certain things gone different.
KEVIN IOLE: That is awesome. Kamaru, I appreciate you, brother. Congratulations on winning the title and making a defense and also for stepping up and being willing to save that event. That was really admirable of you. Kamaru Usman, the UFC welterweight champ, everybody.
KAMARU USMAN: Thank you.