Former Welterweight champion Kamaru Usman might be in a conversation with Dana White about joining #1 title contender Shavkat Rakhmonov in the octagon at UFC 310 in champion Belal Muhammad’s absence. Usman, who has been vocal about the idea of fighting for the title again, finds himself in the precarious position where it seems he’s fulfilling Belal’s wishes as well, despite their rather public feud.
Earlier this year, Belal won the welterweight title by defeating Leon Edwards at UFC 304 in Manchester and has since been talked trash about both Rakhmonov and Usman. While the Kazakh fighter kept it strictly to the professional, Usman, being a former champion did not take any disrespect from the Palestinian American champion.
However, Belal took the trolling to a point where he asked both Shavkat and Usman to fight each other to find a winner who would eventually face him for the title.
The event never came to pass as the UFC put pen to paper on Belal fighting Rakhmonov at UFC 310. Unfortunately, now that’s not going to happen since Belal has had surgery.
And with Rakhmonov suggesting he fight someone from the interim title, the speculations about Usman make it all the funnier.
Careful what you wish for
If the Rakhmnov-Usman fight is happening, and for the interim title, then at UFC 310, both the fighters ensure they have the only guaranteed right to fight Belal when he returns a few weeks later.
Life is not fair but it sure is funny this way.
This would also be Usman’s biggest climb to the championship mountain since his loss to Edwards in their rematch at UFC 278. The fighter has been in only another fight since. And it was on short notice as well.
Usman found himself at middleweight at UFC 294 against the dangerous Khamzat Chimaev. Surprisingly, despite the lack of a fight camp, the former champion was able to take the fight to Borz like nobody had done before or has since. He danced around with the Chechen and wrestled the life out of him for 3 rounds, the last of which saw the undefeated fighter begin to fade.
Fortunately for Borz, by the time the final bells rang, he had done enough to win. But things could have gone vastly differently if the fight were a 5 rounder like Usman was used to fight i.e., for title matches as Borz was fading away and the Nigerian Nightmare was gaining steam going into the non-existent fourth round.
But all that is in the past now. Right now, all that matters is UFC 310 and if the rumors are true, that’s kind of what everybody wanted- Belal wanted Shavkat vs Usman, Usman wanted to be back in the title conversation and Rakhmonov wanted to fight for an interim title.
