Tonight Kamaru Usman takes on Welterweight champion Leon Edwards in a trilogy fight at the O2 arena.
At their previous fight in august 2022, Usman was knocked out unconscious by Edwards’ high left kick. Coming into this fight, Usman is probably going to have his guard up, but will still go in confident knowing that he put up a better fight in round 2, 3 and 4 in their last meet up.
All in all, they have had 8 rounds together (from their first and second fight) and Usman has had the upper hand in most of those rounds. Although Edwards’ kick was set up and was far from a lucky shot, Usman may still take confidence knowing that he was having a better fight, and could have taken the win if he avoided the knockout. At the end however, all that mattered was the one round where Edwards knocked him out.
Edwards is going to go into this fight just as confident as Usman. It took Edwards a few years to get his title fighting opportunity, and he is going to want to hold onto the title. He is in high spirits going into this fight and firmly believes that knocking out Usman again is doable. Edwards will go into the octagon confident knowing that he seriously hurt Usman in their previous meet up, whereas if you look back at their both previous fights, Usman hasn’t managed to seriously hurt Edwards yet.
Like any fight, knocking out the opponent is always a possibility, and understanding the best way to knock out your specific opponent makes the possibility even higher. If Edwards is able to keep this fight on the feet and avoid wrestling, his chances of knocking out Usman would be greater. Also, Usman’s Jiu-Jitsu isn’t great, and Edwards’ trainer will surely advise him to use that to his advantage.
Usman has had a few obstacles on the way to this fight, one of them being that he is coming off a surgery, and took some time out to heal his hand injury. Fans have also been speculating if his focus has been on other ventures, but he has been seen in Colorado at his training camp putting in a lot of work since his previous meet up with Edwards in Salt Lake City last year.
In terms of Usman’s game plan, he is going to want to take it to wrestling as much as possible, to hold Edwards down and hurt him from there.
On Edward’s side are also the fans watching on the night. The fight will be taking place at his home turf and he will be walking out to the octagon after Usman. For Usman, being first to walk into the octagon is going to be strange for him, and there will be roars around the arena when Edwards does his walk out, but how Usman chooses to react to this is entirely up to him, it could either have him feeling overwhelmed or power him up. The same could be said for Edwards.
Both fighters have one win against each other, and whoever is victorious tonight will bring closure to the rivalry.
