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Former UFC welterweight champion Kamaru Usman recently expressed his regret at not achieving champ-champ status in his UFC career. Usman, who defended his welterweight title five times, admitted that it stings that he never became a double champion. However, he made it clear that he wouldn't go up to middleweight to pursue the second title because his friend Israel Adesanya was the 185lbs champion.
Usman emphasized that he had no desire to be the reason why Adesanya, another Nigerian, was not a UFC champion.
"It stings that I didn’t become double-champion. But, it doesn’t sting that I didn’t go up and fight Israel," Usman said on his Pound-4-Pound podcast.
He reiterated that if Adesanya wasn't the champ, he would have definitely moved up to 185lbs and tried for champ-champ status.
Despite his refusal to fight Adesanya, Usman made it clear that he would have moved up to challenge Sean Strickland, who currently holds the middleweight title, if he had still been the welterweight champion. Usman had already defeated Strickland at 170lbs and believed he could do the same at 185lbs to become a champ-champ. However, this scenario did not materialize, and Usman will be remembered as a dominant UFC welterweight champion rather than a champ-champ.
Usman's recent middleweight debut did not go as planned, as he suffered a majority decision loss to Khamzat Chimaev in October, marking his third consecutive defeat. Prior to that, he lost his welterweight title to Leon Edwards after being knocked out by the Brit. Usman's current record stands at 20-4.