The sport of MMA is evolving every day inside the cage, and former champion Kamaru Usman revealed how newer fighters are using the cage to their advantage. Usman is the former world Welterweight champion and has been at the top of the pound-for-pound list for quite some time. The six-time world champion is one of the best wrestling experts in the UFC and recently revealed how fighters were using the cage to their advantage.
Kamaru Usman and Joe Rogan agree on their take on the UFC cage.
Kamaru Usman and Joe Rogan on fighters using the cage
The Former pound-for-pound king was a collegiate wrestler and has even gotten into several wrestling scrambles in the octagon in the UFC. Lately, Usman has been spotted talking about everything mixed martial arts on his podcast. The former Welterweight king had a rather interesting take on the fighters trying to avoid grappling and takedown attempts by using the octagon cage to their advantage. Usman said,
You take a guy down up close to the cage, they’re just gonna get back to there feet. Guys are getting really good at that. Look at Sean O’Malley. Defended Aljamain. Aljamain couldn’t take him down against the cage, you know. So guys are learning. So, guys are learning how to use that as a weapon to get back up,
Usman made a rather interesting point. He claimed that fighters with a wrestling-heavy approach have a massive disadvantage in the octagon and he gave the example of Sean O’Malley’s fight against Aljamain Sterling and touched on how easily Sean could stuff the takedowns using the cage to his advantage. Usman made the same point that Joe Rogan made several weeks back on his podcast.
Rogan clarified that the fighters use the cage to avoid takedown attempts from their opponents and think that the fight should take place on an open mat where there can be a red zone where the fighters will be given a warning to return to the safe zone. It will be interesting to see if the company pays any heed to what Joe and Kamaru had to say.
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Natural grapplers would love the UFC to adopt a more wrestling-friendly fight venue for UFC events shortly, but let’s see if Dana White makes some necessary changes, as pointed out by the duo.
ALSO READ: “I Would Love To Do It” – Former Opponent Wants To Fight Kamaru Usman Again
