Kamaru Usman brought his professional win streak to 11 with his unanimous decision victory over Emil Meek at UFC St Louis. “The Nigerian Nightmare” is now 7-0 under the UFC banner, and is ready to work himself into title contention in one of the toughest divisions in the promotion.
Following his post-fight comments in St Louis last night, Usman was booed by the crowd who perceived the 29-year-old’s address as disrespectful.
“Listen, I fought this fight sitting at about 30%,” Usman said. “Everybody knows what I’m capable of. I was 30% right there and I still dominated a tough so-called Viking.”
Usman’s comments also caught the attention of UFC President Dana White, who was quick to criticize the Nigerian down at the post-fight scrum:
“I didn’t love that fight by the way. Yeah, he’s a tough guy. Yeah, he can impose his will. Then you don’t jump up and start talking smack like you just knocked somebody out or something and say you only went 30%. So what’s that mean? What if you’re on PPV? You go 60%? It’s one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever heard somebody say. You’re getting booed out of the arena on top of it.”
Usman later explained his post-fight speech:
“I came in with a lot of different things. There’s just a lot of things that happened throughout the span as you guys know – the fight being moved, fight being canceled, fight being back on, not knowing if you’re going to fight, if, and, or you’re even going to fight. There were a lot of different things and I was sick for a long, long time.”
