Kamaru Usman is not convinced that Tyron Woodley is the superior wrestler than him. In fact, he believes that he would have dominated Woodley had the two competed in college.
In a recent media scrum, Kamaru Usman refuted Tyron Woodley’s claim that being a Division I All-American is sufficient proof that he is a superior wrestler than Usman, who competed at the Division II level. Professor Usman would proceed to lecture reporters and the MMA community about why he believes Woodley’s claim is fallacious:
“See this is the thing that you guys don’t know,” Professor Usman began. “This is the thing that a lot of Division I wrestlers like to hang onto is, ‘Oh, I wrestled Division I. I wrestled Division I.’ That doesn’t matter.
“There’s three divisions NCAA-wise: Division I, II, and III. At the Division I, you’ve got schools like Nebraska. You’ve got schools like Penn State. These multi-billion-type schools that are bringing in revenue with their football program. So they have a lot more money to go around. They can actually pay 16-20 guys a full scholarship on the roster. But Division II are a little bit smaller schools, to where, now, when you talk about a student body of 40,000-50,000, you’re talking about 15,000, 20,000 kids. That scholarship is not as big.
“So translate it over to Division III where they don’t even give out athletic scholarships,” Usman continued. “It’s all academic scholarship. So now, translate it over to competition. Of course a lot more kids are gonna want to go to Division I schools they feel like, oh, I’m gonna get free money. And then, Division II schools, lesser kids are gonna wanna go to Division II schools, to where Division III, if I can get an athletic scholarship, why would I settle for that school?”
“In an NCAA tournament, Division I, you’ll probably get 16 kids in a bracket that are tough wrestlers, to where now, you go to Division II, it’s not that many kids who went there for scholarships, so you’ll get maybe eight, to where now you go to Division III you get maybe the top three.
After laying down the foundation and the prior knowledge for the students, Professor Kamaru Usman would then present how these facts translates to a Kamaru Usman vs. Tyron Woodley wrestling comparison:
“Every now and again, you’ll get that Division II or Division III kid that chose to go to a Division II or Division III that’s better than everybody. And (Woodley) knows that.
“I beat a lot of Division I guys, a lot of them…All Americans and champions. He’s the type of guy that I would have beat the shit out of in college because he thought like that,” Usman concluded. “And there was nothing that I loved more, even wrestling in college, than being able to go in there and shut up guys like that.”
Kamaru Usman will challenge Tyron Woodley for the welterweight championship at UFC 235, and it will not be in a wrestling match. It will determine who will be crowned as the best welterweight fighter in the UFC today.
What are your thoughts on Professor Usman’s lesson? Does he make a good case that Tyron Woodley’s Division I status does not mean he is necessarily the superior wrestler?
