This weekend, Kamaru Usman will make his octagon comeback at UFC 286 in an attempt to reclaim the welterweight title. The No. 6-ranked Dricus du Plessis recently made statements in which he said that he was the African on the UFC roster.
The former welterweight champion said during UFC 286 media day:
“The one thing he’s failing to realize is just because I go to China, and my parents are in China, and I’m raised in China, that doesn’t make me more Chinese than people from China. Just because you went over to South Africa and you were raised there, that doesn’t make you African. Try to be a little bit more careful with what you say, and how you say it.”
Usman added:
“These younger guys and these newer guys they get up here and they just talk because they want to appeal to the fans and appeal to the people, but try to be more mindful because 20 years from now, that’s not going to age well.”
Usman has been a resident of the United States since he was eight years old. He claimed that he trained with du Plessis and was perplexed by the straight jabs du Plessis used to suggest that he was more African than former UFC champions Adesanya, Usman and Ngannou. Usman explained that du Plessis made the remarks in the heat of the moment.
With less than a minute remaining in the fifth round of UFC 278 , Leon Edwards surprised the world by landing a head kick on Kamaru Usman which knocked him out. Usman recently said that he thinks Edwards has forgotten about the remaining 24 minutes.
Usman said: “Of course, it was a beautiful technique and you landed it, which I’m a fan of – I was like d**n that’s beautiful, I gave him props for it – but you’re forgetting what happened.”