UFC welterweight champion Leon Edwards recently stated that his trilogy bout with Kamaru Usman must happen on UK soil. He also provided a potential timeline for the highly anticipated fight.
Edwards stunned the MMA world when he captured the welterweight title by defeating Kamaru Usman at UFC 278. After a strong first round from the Brit, ‘The Nigerian Nightmare’ returned to form and dominated the next three. Four minutes into the fifth and down on the scorecards, ‘Rocky’ threw a perfectly timed head kick that knocked the Nigerian-American out cold.
Leon Edwards became Britain’s second UFC champion ever behind Michael Bisping. He now wants to be given the chance to defend the title on home soil, similar to Bisping when he defended the middleweight title against Dan Henderson.
In a recent interview with Troopz on the Back Again podcast, the 31-year-old Edwards said:
“It’s at Wembley bro. We’re going back to the sites, I’m not going over there again. I did my job, I went to his [Kamaru Usman] backyard and took it off him, so now he’s got to come to my backyard. I’m not going over there again, it’s on my terms now. He has to come over here. It’s looking like early next year, maybe March.”
Check out the interview with Leon Edwards at the 30:00-minute mark below:
Chael Sonnen believes Conor McGregor is out of the welterweight title picture while Leon Edwards is champion
Conor McGregor has spent much of his recovery from injury teasing fans about his potential return. While most don’t consider the Irishman a contender at 170lbs, it didn’t stop ‘Notorious’ from regularly taking shots at Kamaru Usman when ‘The Nigerian Nightmare’ was still the welterweight champion.
The Dublin-born fighter had previously expressed a desire to face Usman for the welterweight strap and whether you believe McGregor was deserving or otherwise, the fight certainly would have made the UFC money.
Now, following Leon Edwards’ stunning victory over Usman, Chael Sonnen believes there’s no chance McGregor faces ‘Rocky’ because they’re both represented by Paradigm Sports. ‘The American Gangster’ stated on his YouTube channel:
“I think that we can eliminate the title talk… I know that was real, but it turns out that Leon is under the Paradigm management company. So essentially, Conor and Leon are teammates. Leon and Conor match up very well. But Conor and Kamaru don’t match up very well. Conor and Chimaev don’t match up very well.”
According to Sonnen, being represented by the same agency effectively ends any chance of the two fighting. It wouldn’t make business sense to have two fighters face each other when only one of their stocks would rise with a victory.
Catch the full video here: