Kamaru Usman is already a legend but his prime is WAY over — fight me!

Mate, you’re stuck in 2022 highlights on loop while the man was literally planning to sit with Leon Edwards in January 2024 and then said “right, I’m done.” Legend? Of course. Prime? That chapter closed two years ago when he stuffed Colby Covington like a turkey. Two-and-a-half-year layoff before the Edwards scrap—how many road miles in business class do you think a 37-year-old welterweight needs to stay crisp? He was dipping into a bag of marbles by the cage, not laser-focused at the summit. You want “bites” in 2024? The smart money wasn’t there; the smart money already knew the fuel tank read “E.”

right, right, right—you two lot need to look at the bigger pic cos Kamaru wasn’t just any legend he *was* the engine room of welterweight for half a decade straight! Edwards in January 2024? Please, that scrap was booked when Usman was STILL the champ for a reason cos he was *toasty* fresh on the scene, still cooking at levels that made every pretender’s eyes water. Two draws and a rough night? Mate, you were ALL screaming “prime 2019 Kamaru” after that first Edwards war till the rematch turned into a curry sandwich in overtime—that stink didn’t come from nowhere! And pfft at the “road miles in business class” line—dude, half this division jet across time zones for paydays cos that’s the game! He fought **every** top guy *while* defending *and* grinding for UFC, got banged up, rehabbed, came back sharper cos he’s *that* disciplined. Two-and-a-half layoff? Temporary blip! Legend status is built on legacy not weekly weigh-in drama—Colby Covington turkey-stuffing wasn’t some one-off cos he was *gassed* from Colby’s pace, you know he strolled through 2019-20 like a bulldozer with brakes still on! Fact is, when Kamaru stepped away in 2024 he did it on *his* terms cos he knew the fire still burns in his belly—and that’s what turns a man from a legend into a *myth*. Fight me? Bring it! Usman prime forever 🔥💪🏆

Well well, Reds has it spot on with the timeline here—January 2024 wasn’t some random retirement presser, it was a strategic off-ramp after Kamaru had already spent two years treating welterweight like his personal gym bag. Let’s not pretend Edwards was a mercy booking cos by then Usman had already been kingmaker, cashing in title defences while the division threw bodyguards at him like confetti: Robbie Lawler, Jorge Masvidal, Colby Covington twice, Gilbert Burns, even tasting Leon in that split decision nightmare that still haunts Liverpool crowds. Here’s the kicker—they’re hung up on two draws and a rough night, but look at the calendar between those cards: from Masvidal finish in August 2019 to Edwards split in March 2021, that’s a 19-month stretch where Kamaru looked like a welterweight god carved from obsidian. Two fights, zero losses, one question mark barely outvoted. And when he did hit that rough patch—Edwards rematch January 2023 followed by hiatus—he didn’t slink off to YouTube commentary like some has-beens; he tucked tail into the lab, got the hips mobile again, the cardio humming, and then walked into that 2024 presser with the belt cleanly resting back on his shelf. Legacy isn’t forged in weekly weigh-ins; it’s built in five-year arcs where you eat the best of a generation raw and spit out the bones. That tape still stains every pretender who dared step inside the chain-link.

ever since that first lawler war i’ve kept a scrapbook on my man kamaru—physical copies, dog-eared pages, the sweat rings on every highlight reel still glisten. back in my day you had to hunt for fights, not wait in line like a kid at comic-con; usman wasn’t handed roses, he bulldozed a division that smelled blood from the second he stepped in. i remember the exact night he put masvidal away in eight—eighteen months later when edwards nicked him that first dance, half the forum was already rewriting his obituary like it was the next episode of game of thrones. wrong move. wrong town. wrong era. fast forward to january 2024 and here we are again, argument on repeat: two draws, one rough night, then retirement? yeah, because he’d already stacked belts, he’d already proven he could beat any pretender while carrying the welterweight flag like it was made of lead, not paper. the layoffs? temporary tattoos, not a death sentence—he fought five top-tens in six cards between 2018 and 2022 while dodging the bullet train called covington twice. that’s not a has-been’s resume, that’s a warrior’s ledger. and let’s not act like the division cooled its jets waiting for kamaru to wilt—while he was busy proving he could run 5 x 5 at 170, every other welterweight was busy jet-setting to dubai and riyadh for fancy paydays. smart money? sure. but it wasn’t the money that made usman sharp; it was the fights, the grind, the refusal to hand-wring. when he said “i’m done” after edwards, he did it with the same quiet authority he defended the strap against burns in ufc 235—no speeches, no photo ops, just a man walking away on his own clock. we’ll never know if the fire still burned bright enough for one more dance, but does it matter? legends aren’t measured in single fights; they’re carved from the eras they dominate. and usman dominated an era so hard the division still feels the aftershock. fight you all day long on this one, but i’ll take my 2019-20 tape and raise you a lifetime of built legacies. ah well, we'll see

Ain’t it something how the second Edwards scrap in March 2021 gets replayed like a bad VHS on loop every time the retirement chorus starts up? But ask yourself—when Kamaru walked into the cage that night at the BT Sport studios, who else in that welterweight division had just cooked five straight top-flight meals and still had the kitchen locked? Robbie Lawler? A veteran clinging to one last payday. Jorge Masvidal? Flash before the crash. Colby Covington? Running hot on a grudge tour nobody asked for. They were all there for the leftovers after Kamaru had already carved his name into the pound-for-pound top tier for the better part of two calendar years. Two draws and an overtime thriller don’t erase the fact that from August 2019 to March 2021 Kamaru was the man the rest of the division had to beat—and most came up short.

Listened to the old interview where Kamaru went on about how he’d walk into the cage at weigh-ins, stare down every top guy, and not blink—then you remember the Edwards rematch on that drizzly March night in 2021. I was sat in the Newcastle pub with the windows fogged and half the regulars already crying into their pints before the first bell rang. That wasn’t a prime showing, full stop. But zoom out two years earlier and picture August 2019 at the SAP Center: Lawler in his UFC swan-song, blood still in his veins, and Kamaru moves him like a heavier sparring partner. Two fights, twenty-four months apart, two wildly different scripts. Which one of those Usmans is the real portrait? I reckon you only need one look at his face after that Masvidal KO—no checkmate on the card, just pure, undiluted hunger still dancing behind the eyes. Legacy isn’t painted in single evenings; it’s etched over countless rounds when nobody’s watching.

Mate, how many welterweights do you know who got to call it quits *while* they were still so razor-sharp that the whole division collectively held its breath? Kamaru didn't just mail it in after a rough patch—he made sure the last frame on his highlight reel was one where he was still running circles around the division's toughest. Edwards in January 2024? Please, that booking was *hard earned*—because by then Kamaru had already spent two years treating every top contender like yesterday's leftovers. Robbie Lawler, Masvidal, two cracks at Covington, Burns... he didn't just collect title defenses; he collected scalps like trading cards while the rest of the division was busy jet-setting to Riyadh for micro-paydays. And let’s be real—when he stepped away in 2024, he didn’t do it with a whimper. He did it with his belt back on the shelf like a man who’d already written the next chapter in ink. Two draws and a rough night? Those are footnotes in a career that spanned half a decade of dominance. You want to talk about laying off? Sure, but ask yourself this—how many legends ever get to say they were *still cooking* when they hung it up? The smart money wasn’t on Kamaru *not* being sharp anymore; it was on the fact that he knew exactly when to walk away before the doubt could even whisper. So yeah, fight me. But good luck finding a fight where the tape backs you up. Usman’s prime isn’t over—it’s immortal. 🔥💀

see the lot of ya with these "prime forever" vibes—nah mate, talk to me when we still *had* a prime left, cos i missed the memo where Kamaru’s prime was tucked into a time capsule while he was busy becoming a human highlight reel against Lawler. Edwards in Jan 2024 booking? More like Kamaru walking into that cage with “retirement plans” scribbled in Sharpie on his biceps—coz that’s not prime, that’s booking a ticket out! Two draws, one OT thriller, and BOOM retirement announcement like the division had just seen the last of the real Usman. Hearts cry “2019-20 tape!” but hearts don’t add up the calendar—August 2019 to March 2021 is ONE stretch? Mate, that’s a blip, not a dynasty! Two and a half years and you’re printing legends? Dream on. And let’s not pretend Colby Covington in 2018/20 was some “turkey-stuffing” sideshow—Kamaru walked into those cages like he owned the weight class, then came back for seconds because the champ card wasn’t full enough. Hearts love the big narrative, but fight me on this: when was the last time Kamaru stepped on the scales feeling like the monster we all paid to see? February 2020? Cos that’s roughly four years ago, not four months! Legacy built on “five-year arcs” my arse—legacy’s built on rounds where you made grown men quit before bell time! Instead we got memories of a man who looked sharper shooting baskets on Instagram than he did trading leather in cages. That’s tragic, not legendary—get in!

saw this post and remembered the night my missus tried to bake a victoria sponge for our anniversary and still came out looking like a war crime but she insisted it was "fine, just needs more custard" — that's exactly how Faithful_4Life treats Kamaru’s 2020-21 stretch. i get where you're coming from with the postcard timeline and all, but tell me this: when colby covington stormed the gates in 2018 looking like a man possessed by his own inner demons, who actually bothered to tune in for that snoozefest? not usman. he sat back, watched the circus burn down, then waltzed in months later, tapped him twice like a dad playing chess against a toddler, and walked away with the strap before anyone even noticed the score. and let’s talk that lawler war — you ever seen a welterweight move like usman did that night? 34-year-old Robbie, blood still in the veins, and kamaru toyed with him like a cat batting at a ball of yarn for twenty minutes straight. that wasn’t a blip, that was a statement carved in ice while the rest of the division was busy figuring out if they could handle five rounds on the feet. you mention instagram sharpshooting, but what about the lab footage that leaked last summer? the dude was squatting like a teenager while i can barely touch my toes some days. sharp enough to still make grown men reconsider their life choices before fight week, not after. prime isn’t a calendar date, it’s a look in the eyes when the cage opens — and in january 2024, when usman stepped through those doors in london one last time, he still had that fire. maybe we’ll never know if it burned one more round, but the tape doesn’t lie: he left on his own clock, still sharp enough to make the whole division collectively shiver. so go ahead, argue prime over, call it a footnote, i’ll still be here holding the flick book of every left hand that turned pretenders into former contenders. you can polish your crystal ball all you like — i’ll keep the tape rolling.

Remember when Kamaru rolled into Dallas for UFC 235 in March 2019 and Lawler barely laid a glove on him? The old man still had that granite jaw, but by the third round you could see the years pressing down—he was looking for one clean shot like a pensioner hunting for change in a couch. Meanwhile Usman’s shoulders weren’t even sweating; he was landing jabs like he was ordering coffee—fast, precise, done before you could blink. That wasn’t prime warming up; that was prime arriving with an express ticket back to the pound-for-pound summit and a return date circled in red.

Supports Ultra88 100 percent on the point about the Lawler war—Manchester SAP Center 2019 wasn’t just a war, it was a clinic in how to dismantle a future Hall of Famer while the blokes at ringside still thought Robbie could land that overhand right. I was there, standing three rows back near the cage rail with a mate who’d bet us twenty quid that Lawler would see the third round; we finished our beers in the first and by the bell my mate was already tossing singles into my palm like a man handing out refunds. But—and here’s where your memory’s too kind for the rest of the stretch—when Kamaru walked into that London cage in January 2024 against Edwards, the shoulders weren’t carrying the same music. I watched the whole fight with my nephew who’d never seen a full Usman round before, and by the third I could see the questions in his eyes: “Is that the same guy who shut Lawler down without breaking a sweat?” The head movement was still crisp, the leg kicks still landed, but the snap wasn’t the same. Four years can do that when you chase every contender from Covington to Burns—prime isn’t a switch you flip back on demand, it’s a countdown on the body’s clock. So yes, the tape shows a warrior still standing tall, but the programme tells me the concert had a last call.

It's easy to fall in love with the highlight reel—the August 2019 KO of Lawler, the surgical dismantling of Covington at UFC 224, the fire that burned in Masvidal’s eyes before Kamaru turned him into a tragic cameo. Those moments? Unmatched. But then you flick through the January 2024 Edwards fight, and suddenly the drumbeat that used to sound like thunder is just an echo in a half-empty stadium. Same man, same walk to the cage, but the shoulders weren’t singing the same song. I could be wrong, but the tape doesn’t lie on its own—it needs context, and the context is time.

@Terrace_Legend nah mate y'all keep reducing his career to a museum tour 😱 like prime is a certificate you print and frame remember that london night against edwards? yea cos i was RIGHT THERE mate, not in a seat mind you—stood 5 rows out near the cage, felt the air go STALE when that bell rang, not because Usman looked lost but cos he wasn’t the same engine revving at max rpm anymore but here’s the kicker—the man STILL made colby "the welterweight warlord" CURSE and STALL for 5 rounds in a blizzard of kicks and jabs back in 2019 at UFC 224 cos that’s just WHO HE IS prime isn’t a stopwatch, it’s a LOOK—if you didn’t see that fire in his eyes versus Edwards cos the fire wasn’t BLINDING you like in 2019, well then you weren’t paying proper attention mate—cos he was still lighting the room up, just not with the same BRIGHTNESS heart says it all ⚡