“I want to continue to just get better” – Kamaru Usman opens up on moving to the middleweight division

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3 years ago

Kamaru Usman of Nigeria celebrates after his victory over Jorge Masvidal in their UFC welterweight championship fight (Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images)

Having conquered the welterweight division to the fullest, talks of Kamaru Usman moving to the middleweight division have been doing the rounds

It is safe to say that Kamaru Usman is the greatest welterweight to ever grace the Octagon. The Nigerian has had little or no trouble in getting past all of his opponents in the division.

He is on a title-defense streak of 4, and a division win streak of a record 14 wins. Not even the great Georges St-Pierre has that much (12 wins).

Since he has been easing past everyone in the welterweight division, talks of him moving to the middleweight are on the up.

Kamaru Usman defeated Jorge Masvidal at UFC 261 (Twitter)

Usman recently addressed this in a recent interview with CBS Sports HQ which featured UFC Hall of Famer Rashad Evans. Usman jokingly said that he would have moved up weight classes without hesitation, had Evans still been the champ.

It is worth noting that, Evans was the light-heavyweight champ before the Jon Jones era.

Usman then added that he wouldn’t move to the MW division until his dear friend and countryman Israel Adesanya leaves.

‘The Nigerian Nightmare’ said:

“Right now, I want to continue to just get better. My good friend, buddy and fellow countryman Israel Adesanya is the middleweight champion right now. With that being said, I don’t have any desire to go up and try to compete for that belt. But if he is no longer the champion, then it makes sense.”

Kamaru Usman reveals if a fight between Khabib Nurmagomedov and Charles Oliveira would ever happen

Charles Oliveira clinched the lightweight belt at UFC 262. He became the first winner of the title since Khabib Nurmagomedov vacated it.

His win had a lot talking about the Brazilian’s victory enticing Khabib to comeback. However, Usman put an end to it, saying that Khabib was happy with his life and had no intentions of coming back.

Usman told TMZ Sports:

“Definitely I think Khabib did watch the fight. Was he intrigued? ‘Yes, I wanna get back in there.’ Probably not…I mean, he’s a man that’s happy. He’s happy with his life. He’s happy with the direction that it’s going and yeah, I think he’s retired.” [via TMZ Sports]