UFC Fight Night<\/a> Preview on UFC on Paramount, former UFC middleweight and light heavyweight title challenger Chael Sonnen addressed Dricus du Plessis vs. Kamaru Usman.\u00a0<\/p>\n“The Bad Guy” signaled that both Usman and du Plessis might have been promised that their fight’s victor would receive a UFC middleweight title shot.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When asked about whether Usman was a live dog in the fight, given that some oddsmakers have him as a huge betting underdog, Sonnen stated:\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Yes. I think he (Kamaru Usman) is a live dog. I think he is a terrible matchup for Dricus du Plessis. I really do. Look, Dricus did not just lose his last fight (against Khamzat Chimaev); he lost his last five rounds. Oh, by the way, to a superior wrestler. Kamaru Usman is a national champion wrestler. Everybody forgets that.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sonnen seemingly harked back to the first MMA encounter between Usman and fellow wrestling savant Colby Covington back in December of 2019. Covington was an NCAA Division I All-American as an amateur wrestler. Meanwhile, Usman was an NCAA Division II All-American and an NCAA Division II National Champion.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“The American Gangster” recalled how some expected Covington to simply outwrestle Usman, given that the latter competed in the Division II realm unlike Covington, who’d achieved success as a Division I wrestler.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Regardless, their MMA clash, which transpired at UFC 245, saw their respective grappling arsenals nullify each other. What ensued was a largely striking-centric battle that ended with Usman defending his UFC welterweight title by beating Covington via fifth-round TKO.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On that note, Sonnen implied that Usman and other Division II wrestlers are often deprived of the credit they deserve. Alluding to the Nigerian-born American fighter’s exceptional wrestling prowess, Sonnen said:\u00a0<\/p>\n
“And Division II doesn’t get the same credit as Division I in this country (United States of America). But he’s still a national champion. He was an Olympic prospect back in 2012. Kamaru Usman definitely can win this fight.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
Watch Chael Sonnen discuss Kamaru Usman’s underdog standing against Dricus du Plessis below (*comments at the 3:00-minute mark of the video):\u00a0<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chael Sonnen has warned MMA fans about the narrative regarding Kamaru Usman being a huge underdog against Dricus…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":804200,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,31771,17724,641,35894,638,82,640],"class_list":["post-804199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-chael-sonnen","tag-dricus-du-plessis","tag-fighting","tag-kamaru-usman","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=804199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804199\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/804200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=804199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=804199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=804199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}