Kamaru Usman is frustrated to say the least. He’s campaigned for the better part of a year for higher ranked names to test himself against, but the fights never got booked. All of the big fights he’s wanted have either passed him by for some reason or another, or have been taken by Colby Covington. So, make no mistake that going into his fight this Sunday against Emil Meek, he’s going to fight the man who was willing to step up, but he’s not taking his eyes off of bigger things. Sooner or later, he believes he and Covington will have to fight. Not just because the natural progression of the rankings, but because it is written in the book of fate.
“It’s a fight that has to happen. It’s a fight that has to happen because I believe this is fate. This fight has been written. How much of a small world do we live in? I was a little boy born in Auchi, Nigera, in a country full of over 200 million people, in a small farm town. To get to the point where I immigrate here, I’m in America, to where I get to college and I cross paths with the people that I have. Let’s just summarize this a little bit: Me and Jon Jones crossed paths senior year of high school. We met at senior nationals, a big wrestling tournament, and after that, we became friends. ‘Hey, I’m going to go to school in Iowa next year.’ He said, ‘I’m going to go to school in Iowa [too].’ That’s great. We stayed in touch.”
Remember the name The Nigerian nightmare @usman84kg is the best welterweight on the planet today no mercy @ufc pic.twitter.com/Dwl4jAhtVX
— Ali Abdelaziz (@AliAbdelaziz00) January 6, 2018
“My fall break, I went up to [Jon Jones’] school, spent time with him all fall break. We hung out all week. I stayed in his place, his dorm, their apartment there, which happened to be the room that Colby Covington stayed in the following year when he moved to school there. How small of a world that is, to where, take things further, we both live in South Florida, literally 20, 30 miles away from each other. We train at rival gyms. We have mutual friends, and I mean mutual friends that we see daily, we talk to daily. So this is something that’s set in stone that’s been written. A lot of people don’t know, but we were supposed to be the main event for this card, which is why it took so long to get a main event scheduled. But, once again, he declined the fight, and so, here we are. He can run, but you can’t hide forever.” — Kamaru Usman speaking to FloCombat.
Not only is it fate that Kamaru Usman and Colby Covington fight, but it was supposed to already happen. According to Usman, Covington declined the fight and the main event sport, leading way for Jeremy Stephens and Dooho Choi to headline the Missouri card. After that crazy story, is their connection just coincidence, or is a force drawing Kamaru Usman ever closer to Covington? We’ll have to wait until after Sunday to see, but answers can’t come soon enough for the surging welterweight contender who has the toughest time of any being booked in fights.
This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 1/12/2018.