Leon Edwards was done, they said. Just fighting to make to the bell, they said. He’s broken, they said. Edwards said otherwise. “Head shot, bang! Done!” declared the exuberant new UFC welterweight …
He’s broken, they said.“Head shot, bang! Done!” declared the exuberant new UFC welterweight champion, just moments before his hand was raised and the belt was his.
There was a time when Usman vs. Edwards was competitive — dramatic, even. Before that gorgeous out-of-the-blue kick, Edwards turned plenty of heads by landing the first takedown Usman has given up during his UFC career, which began with winning “The Ultimate Fighter” in 2015 just five months before Edwards lost the first meeting between the two and had left his promotional record flawless — until now.
We’ll never know how that version of Edwards would have fared. But we saw what he was capable of as he banked the first frame. And the man nicknamed “Rocky,” — whose cornermen, as Hall of Famer and commentator Daniel Cormier pointed out on the broadcast, sounded like the English recasts for the role of Mickey Goldmill as they barked instructions to “Rock” — kept Usman honest in the second frame with some deft punches throughout.
“I can’t explain it. My body just wasn’t reacting how it was meant to react,” Edwards told reporters of his performance through four rounds. “I don’t know whether it was altitude or what it was. … It wasn’t a cardio issue as much as my body wasn’t physically reacting.” If Edwards was, indeed, broken at that point, he sure found some magic glue to put the pieces back together.
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