{"id":277993,"date":"2018-06-07T10:50:44","date_gmt":"2018-06-07T17:50:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/?p=277993"},"modified":"2018-06-07T10:50:44","modified_gmt":"2018-06-07T17:50:44","slug":"kamaru-usman-shares-hopes-for-star-studded-ufc-card-in-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/kamaru-usman\/kamaru-usman-shares-hopes-for-star-studded-ufc-card-in-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Kamaru Usman shares hopes for star-studded UFC card in Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"

After watching Darren Till get a hero’s reception in his hometown of Liverpool, welterweight contender Kamaru Usman is hoping for a similar experience in Africa. While Usman hails from Nigeria, he feels that, if the UFC called on all of its African stars, it could sell out a stadium in pretty much any African nation.<\/p>\n

In a perfect world, Usman can imagine himself, Cameroonian-French heavyweight Francis Ngannou, Nigerian-born Kiwi middleweight Israel Adesanya, and\u00a0Ghanaian welterweight Abdul Razak Alhassan, all competing on a star-studded card in a stadium somewhere on the African continent.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is one thing I want to highlight as well,” Usman said on a recent episode of The MMA Hour<\/a> (transcribed by Nathan Zur for Sherdog<\/a>). “Great job to\u00a0Darren Till. He\u2019s really done a great job with the platform he\u2019s been given. But you put him in Liverpool. The guy from Liverpool that you put there, that\u2019s excelling, that\u2019s doing well now. You trying to tell me, you don\u2019t put me in Nigeria\u2026or not just me, you put me, Francis, Israel, Razak anywhere in Africa, we will do a stadium. We do a stadium easy. Anywhere in Africa, we do a stadium easy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not really popular there because the sport hasn\u2019t really tried to venture out,” Usman continued. “Because a lot of people see Africa as, oh, it\u2019s a third-world [continent], oh, there\u2019s no money there. But how can you say there\u2019s no money there? Diamonds come from there. Gold comes from there. The only issue is that the money is there, but only a few people hold on to the money. So you\u2019ve got half the percent that has the money, and then everybody else is living in poverty because they never let the money trickle down. But there\u2019s money there. But they don\u2019t see that opportunity. So they don\u2019t see that opportunity. So, \u2018why even market there? It\u2019s a third-world [continent]. We don\u2019t care,\u2019 things like that.\u201d But we do [sell out] a stadium easy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Do you imagine the UFC will promote shows on the African continent in the future? Could Kamaru Usman headline such an event?<\/p>\n

This article first appeared on\u00a0<\/i>BJPenn.com<\/i><\/span><\/a>\u00a0on 6\/7\/2018. <\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After watching Darren Till get a hero’s reception in his hometown of Liverpool, welterweight contender Kamaru Usman is hoping for a similar experience in Africa. While Usman hails from Nigeria, he feels that, if the UFC called on all of its African stars, it could sell out a stadium in pretty much any African nation. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54430,"featured_media":271372,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[10616],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nKamaru Usman shares hopes for star-studded UFC card in Africa | BJPenn.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/kamaru-usman\/kamaru-usman-shares-hopes-for-star-studded-ufc-card-in-africa\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Kamaru Usman shares hopes for star-studded UFC card in Africa | BJPenn.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"After watching Darren Till get a hero’s reception in his hometown of Liverpool, welterweight contender Kamaru Usman is hoping for a similar experience in Africa. 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