Jeff Smith 
@adminIn a surprising announcement Kamaru Usman said that he wanted to take on Leon Edwards in a title defense at UFC 262 in Houston on May 15. This would have been an incredibly short turn after defeating Jorge Masvidal at UFC 261 in Jacksonville on April 25.
While Usman was in Atlantic City for his brother’s fight and serving out his quarantine when he heard about Nate Diaz having to withdraw from the bout with Edwards.
But being in a mandatory isolation and less than a month between fights it just wasn’t possible. He revealed his thoughts in an interview with ESPN when he heard the Diaz news.
“And I hear about it.”… “So I pick up the phone, and I speak with my manager Ali, and I tell him,” ….. ‘Hey, I need to check my weight, and I’mma go put in some rounds in the morning. And depending on how I feel, we might be fighting next week.”
Not being able to find a scale in his room, “I basically had to sleep on it and I woke the next morning and I had to go up to my brother’s room and I stepped on a scale and the number wasn’t pretty.” After some consideration for his family, and some of the “other things” he had to attend to over the next six weeks, he decided against the fight.
“I haven’t mentally prepared for this guy,” he said “I could kill myself to get down there {the weight} and go out there and yeah defend my belt. But I want to do it spectacularly, because I know I am just so much better than these guys so just a win wouldn’t satisfy me”.
As for Edwards, he will face Diaz, just not at UFC 262. The fight has been rescheduled for UFC 263 in Arizona on June 12. Usman says he would like to be on the card too defending his belt against Michael Chiesa. Dana White has said Colby Covington “Makes sense” for Usman’s next opponent, the champ feels otherwise.
It is still a pretty good line-up for UFC 262 even without the, arguably, best pound for pound fighter in the game. There are two high profile lightweights set to do battle in the octagon.
First there is #4 ranked Tony Ferguson taking on #9 Beneil Dariush. Dariush has won his last six fights and comes in as the favorite with a +175. While Ferguson has dropped his last two fights after being heavily favored in both, this time he is the underdog at -120.
And of course the big one will be Chandler vs Oliveira for the lightweight championship title. Chandler is favored at +110 and Oliveria sits at -135, it’s a basically a coin flip for this one.
Betting the money on both main event fights is one of the safest bets we have seen for a long time. Dropping a round or over/under could put a little extra in your pocket too.
