In the last weekend showdown in UFC Fight Night in Oklahoma City, Usman got a beatdown, and from a non-fighter point of view, some signs show that Usman has reached his limits and is not the shadow of himself anymore. Du Plessis dominated every round and showed his class against the veteran.
Usman is in the same conversation as George St. Pierre as the greatest welterweight champion ever. But at middleweight he seems to struggle, and he has not shown signs that he can cope in this division. He has lost four of his last five bouts. Making this his worst record in the UFC. Usman was hit with strikes and kicks that, at one point, a lot of fans felt sorry for him, and the legend was torn into pieces by Du Plessis, and this showed that youth was winning even though both fighters have a six-year age difference.
Usman needs to retire, or he can make it easier and move to the welterweight division and dominate again. But it wouldn’t be right, as he has already dominated this division. Usman knows that retirement is imminent and speaking on his own podcast this week, he noted that “Right now, I have to sit with the coaches and the team and assess kind of everything and place where I’m at in my career, all in all, see if it’s worth continuing to do this, whether it’s worth continuing to put them through that; listen, I’ve never really gone out there and not represented them appropriately, myself and my coaches. This one was hard because I felt I didn’t do that.”
The UFC will lose another incredible fighter.