Kamaru Usman last year became the first African-born mixed martial artist (MMA) to win a world title with Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) and has since witnessed a generation of fighters from the continent rise in his wake.
The 33-year-old Nigerian, a welterweight champion, said that this is only the beginning for African fighters already signed by the Las Vegas-based UFC — the sport’s leading global promotion — and for the next wave of African fighters who will follow them.
“There’s just so much talent coming out of Africa,” Usman said. “I know there are kids now who see me and I look like them. They know I’ve seen their paths, I’ve walked that journey. It’s powerful.”
Photo: AFP / Zuffa LLC handout
The Florida-based Usman (17-1) claimed the UFC’s welterweight belt with a unanimous decision over American Tyron Woodley (19-6-1) in March last year — and has since defended it twice, with a technical knockout victory over American Colby Covington (16-2) in December last year and an unanimous points decision over compatriot Jorge Masvidal (35-14) in July.
In October last year, Nigerian-born New Zealander Israel Adesanya (19-0) claimed the organization’s middleweight belt with a knockout of Australia’s Robert Whittaker (21-5), and he steps out again tomorrow to defend it against Brazilian powerhouse Paulo Costa (13-0) in what many around the sport are predicting would be a fight of the year contender.
“There’s just something about us, and where we’re from, that connects us,” Usman said, speaking from Las Vegas.
In the UFC heavyweights, the No. 1 contender is the Cameroonian-born, France-based Francis Ngannou (15-3), destined to soon face off against American title-holder Stipe Miocic (20-3), while the likes of Nigerian-American lightweight Sodiq Yusuff (11-1) and Texas-based Ghanaian welterweight Abdul Razak Alhassan (10-2) are considered serious threats in their respective divisions.
“When I see these guys there a sense of camaraderie that you can’t explain,” Usman said. “You know deep down inside they have felt what you have felt and been through what you have been through.”
In February, he was reunited with his father, who had in 2010 been convicted on a series of healthcare fraud charges and had served nearly 10 years of a 15-year prison sentence.
“I dealt with it, but it was tough,” Usman said. “As an African boy there’s a need to excel for your parents. I was like that. It happened when I was becoming nationally recognized. I was looking for that approval [from him], and I didn’t have my dad to rely on anymore. It bothered me for years, but we were always close and it stayed that way. Having him here now, the dynamic of our relationship is tremendous.”
Usman’s father — a former solider — had left his young family behind in Nigeria in 1989 to forge a new life for them in the US. Usman was two years old at the time and it would take six years for his father to find the financial security to be able to reunite his family.
“To leave your kids and come to America to earn you visa, to give them a better life, it takes guts,” Usman said. “It takes a hustler, someone who is motivated. To go through what he has been through and still be positive and have his spirits up is inspiration to me every day.”
A standout wrestler in high school in Texas and then a three-time All-American at the University of Nebraska, Usman said that he found acceptance among his peers as a young athlete.
“All over the world we forget sometimes that sports bridge the gap between cultures and between nations,” he said. “That’s what happened to me. Starting to excel in sport it started to be that I wasn’t just that little Nigerian boy, I was the wrestler who happens to come from Nigeria.”
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