Ben Askren believes Kamaru Usman missed out on a huge opportunity.
This past Saturday night (Dec. 14), Usman defended the UFC welterweight championship against Colby Covington. The welterweight title bout headlined UFC 245. There was a ton of bad blood going into this one and the fight lived up to expectations. In the end, it was Usman who scored the fifth-round TKO victory.
Askren Thinks Usman Dropped The Ball With Speech
Askren saw Usman’s post-fight speech and he wasn’t impressed by how “The Nigerian Nightmare” came across. Here is his rant during a live stream on Periscope.
“Here’s where Marty missed. Marty gets the mic after the fight. I think everyone would have said that was a really good fight. Marty overcame this obstacle. This annoying obstacle in Colby Covington who has been badgering him, who has been bothering him, who has been harassing him. Who probably everyone, even people who somehow like Colby were probably happy to see him get punched in the face and finished like that.”
Askren went on to say that Usman’s post-fight interview lacked authenticity.
“So the first question to Marty is, ‘Over the past X amount of months since the fight was signed, did Colby’s trash talk get to you at all?’ And he essentially answers, ‘No he did not. I am the most mentally tough guy in this division,’ or something to that effect. I’m pretty close, I don’t know. If I’m off I’m only off by a little bit. Then two questions later, they asked him a question about why Colby was getting the better of him early on. And he said something like, ‘I got too emotional.’ And so it’s like woah, woah, woah. You just tried saying in the first question that you don’t get shook it all, it didn’t bother you. And then two questions later you admit that you got emotional and it did bother you. It’s really simple, people don’t wanna be lied to. They don’t wanna be lied to. People want genuineness.”
Do you agree with Ben Askren on Kamaru Usman’s UFC 245 post-fight speech?
