Kamaru Usman explains why he's happy for Leon Edwards despite UFC 278 defeat

Kamaru Usman has explained why he’s happy for Leon Edwards after losing his title to ‘Rocky’ at UFC 278.

After successfully defending his UFC welterweight championship five times, Kamaru Usman finally ran into a brick wall on Saturday night as he was knocked out cold by Leon Edwards in their UFC 278 main event.

While Usman did appear to be winning the contest, and doing so fairly conclusively with a 3-1 lead on the scorecards, he allowed Edwards to push him back in the final round and ultimately paid the price in the form of a head kick with less than one minute remaining.

His fans, family and teammates were all sat stunned at cageside, with the majority of pundits predicting that he’d beat Edwards to tie the iconic 16-fight winning streak of Anderson Silva.

Alas, it didn’t quite play out that way, with Usman now needing to go back to the drawing board as Edwards has his moment in the spotlight.

During a recent interview with TMZ, ‘The Nigerian Nightmare’ was as humble as ever and made it clear that he’s happy for Leon’s success.

“I like Leon and I’m very happy for Leon. In a sense he kind of, of course not the same path or same journey that I took, but in a sense it kind of reminds me of it. This is good, this is great for his story and it’s even greater for my story. So, we’ll run it back.

“He’s wanted the fight in London for a while, now he’s got it, and it’s a big one. It’s a mega fight, so, I’m excited. I’m already excited about it, I’m gonna be thinking about it, certain intricate details. Congratulations to Leon, it was a beautiful technique and what a Hail Mary. That’s why I love this sport, anything can happen at any time and it definitely did.”

Usman had previously spoken about his intention to move up to 205