{"id":398732,"date":"2021-11-04T13:28:09","date_gmt":"2021-11-04T20:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/?p=398732"},"modified":"2021-11-04T13:28:09","modified_gmt":"2021-11-04T20:28:09","slug":"kamaru-usman-explains-what-it-would-take-for-him-to-move-up-to-middleweight-and-fight-israel-adesanya","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/ufc\/kamaru-usman-explains-what-it-would-take-for-him-to-move-up-to-middleweight-and-fight-israel-adesanya\/","title":{"rendered":"Kamaru Usman explains what it would take for him to move up to middleweight and fight Israel Adesanya"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kamaru Usman and Israel Adesanya are very close and they have said they would never fight one another, but Usman says there is one way they fight.<\/p>\n

Usman, Adesanya, and Ngannou are the three African UFC champions and they all call each other brothers and root for each another. With that, both the welterweight and middleweight champ have said they would never compete against one another.<\/p>\n

“I don\u2019t see myself ever fighting Israel. Even though a lot of people have hinted toward it,” Usman said the JRE MMA Show<\/a>. “I don\u2019t see myself fighting him. Having two belts in Nigeria is better than just having one guy hold two belts. There\u2019s no desire there. That\u2019s my guy. He\u2019s special.”<\/p>\n

However, in the lead-up to Kamaru Usman’s title defense against Colby Covington<\/a>, he said he would be open to compering against Israel Adesanya. However, the price has to be right, and that is $100 million.<\/p>\n

\u201cAdesanya is my guy, that\u2019s something me and him would have to discuss. There\u2019s a difference between fighting and competing,” Usman said to ESPN<\/a> (via LowKickMMA<\/a>). “If me and him decide we want to compete, and the UFC is throwing 100 million dollars at us, then we\u2019ll make it happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whether or not Usman and Adesanya will actually fight one another seems unlikely. However, if the price is right, you can never say never.<\/p>\n

Kamaru Usman enters his fight against Covington coming off a KO win over Jorge Masvidal back in April after TKO’ing Gilbert Burns in February. He has fought three times since he beat Covington in 2019, while “Chaos” only has competed once. Adesanya, meanwhile, is set to defend his title against Robert Whittaker in February at a location TBD.<\/p>\n

Who do you think would win if they were to fight, Kamaru Usman or Israel Adesanya? Let us know in the comment section, PENN Nation!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kamaru Usman and Israel Adesanya are very close and they have said they would never fight one another, but Usman says there is one way they fight. Usman, Adesanya, and Ngannou are the three African UFC champions and they all call each other brothers and root for each another. With that, both the welterweight and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54463,"featured_media":305121,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[39449,10616,39610],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nKamaru Usman explains what it would take for him to move up to middleweight and fight Israel Adesanya | BJPenn.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Kamaru Usman and Israel Adesanya are very close and they have said they would never fight one another, but Usman says there is a chance.\" \/>\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\/ufc\/kamaru-usman-explains-what-it-would-take-for-him-to-move-up-to-middleweight-and-fight-israel-adesanya\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" 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