Kamaru Usman and Leon Edwards have fought for nearly eight rounds and still have unfinished business
Like most Americans, I like to brag when I am right and fade into the background when I am wrong. This is probably why you did not see me reposting the preview article I did for the main event of UFC 278 last August. In the days prior to the event, I posted the following on this fine newsletter/blog/thing.
Edwards is a game fighter, and he might have success in the first few rounds. However, it is hard to see him maintaining enough offense to win three of five rounds or stop the champion.
Well that was wrong. Fire up the Homer Simpson backing into bushes GIF. In the actual fight, Leon Edwards was certainly on the way to dropping a decision, but he instead landed a devastating head kick that handed Kamaru Usman the first stoppage loss of his professional career.
Back in 2015, Usman had dominated Edwards with his smothering wrestling, and much of the rematch last year played out the same way. However, in some ways, Usman opened the door for Edwards by trying to mix the martial arts.
By a pretty wide margin, Usman attempted fewer takedowns per 15 minutes, landed fewer takedowns per 15 minutes, spent a smaller proportion of time in control positions, did a smaller proportion of his striking on the ground and therefore absorbed more significant strikes per minute.
Usman has come a long way as a fighter. He has particularly made strides in his striking. He defeated Colby Covington twice while landing only one knockdown, dropped fellow grappler Gilbert Burns twice and finished Jorge Masvidal with a highlight reel knockout that will be seen for years.
With that being said, it is hard to argue the idea that the old version of Usman is enough to defeat Edwards. One of the biggest factors in favor of this argument is that it already happened. Their first fight was not particularly close.
On the other hand, one could argue that Edwards’ grappling improvements made it tougher for Usman to simply dominate like he did in the first fight. After all, Edwards was able to score a takedown against Usman in the first round and move to the back. The champion also did a much better job of escaping control positions and getting back to his feet.
With that being said, Usman has clearly put less emphasis on his control positions as his career has progressed. It is never a good idea to play amateur psychologist, but it is the only real way to explain his decline in control time.
Despite his improvements in striking, he has never really been able to distance himself from his opponents in terms of distance striking volume. Yes, he lands with power, but he is not likely to win a distance striking count contest by a wide margin
Unless Usman has majorly declined physically, he should be able to use his wrestling based attack to secure a decision victory. It is much harder to keep that pace for five rounds, but he was very close to pulling that off in their second fight. For Edwards to win, he will likely need to make lightning strike twice. He has never been much of a finisher. In his UFC career, he has only three striking based stoppages and one submission victory in 15 fights.