Hangin’ em up?
Former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Welterweight kingpin Kamaru Usman suffered a lopsided unanimous decision loss to former Middleweight roost-ruler Dricus du Plessis in the main event of UFC Oklahoma City last weekend (Sat., July 18, 2026) inside Paycom Center in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
While Usman had a strong fifth round, the former Welterweight champion was not very competitive with Du Plessis for most of the fight. He was rocked several times, struggled to close distance and was unable to consistently take the South African down to implement his wrestling game.
As it turns out, there may have been a pretty significant reason for that.
Usman was apparently compromised.
During the latest episode of his Pound 4 Pound podcast, Usman’s co-host, former two-division UFC champion Henry Cejudo, revealed that “The Nigerian Nightmare” fought Du Plessis with a torn pec.
And Cejudo was not happy that Usman took the fight.
“A lot of people don’t know this, but you fought with a torn pec,” Cejudo said. “And I didn’t like this from the beginning. I don’t like you taking this fight because if you’re f—king fighting with one pec, Kamaru, that’s different, man.
“A lot of people were giving you a lot of s—t because DDP was stopping your takedowns,” Cejudo continued. “But how can you get to those positions when you don’t have a f—king pec? I got your back on this one, Kamaru.”
Usman, however, did not want to lean on the injury as an excuse.
“I understand that, Henry, but it is what it is,” Usman said. “We roll the dice every time, so there are no excuses. We roll the dice, and sometimes it works out, and no one ever finds out. But this time, it didn’t work out. So it’s something I don’t even want to bring up. To answer your question, yes, I am 100 percent a wrestler, and I wanted to utilize that.”
That makes the performance a little easier to understand, especially considering Usman’s wrestling was supposed to be his clearest path to victory against Du Plessis.
Instead, “Stillknocks” stuffed his attempts, hurt him on the feet and handed Usman another difficult loss.
After the fight, Usman was noncommittal about his UFC future during the post-fight press conference, making it clear that he does not want to be one of those fighters who sticks around forever just to collect a paycheck.
He is only interested in big opportunities.
Now, he is opening the door a little wider to retirement.
“Listen, right now I just have to sit with the coaches, sit with the team, assess everything, assess the place where I’m at in my career,” Usman said. “All in all, just see whether it’s worth continuing to do this, whether it’s worth continuing to put them through that because I’ve never really gone out there and not represented them appropriately.”
Time will tell if Usman continues his historic career.
The former Welterweight champion turned 39 years old in 2026 and has now lost four of his last five fights. Add in another serious injury, and it is fair to wonder how much longer “The Nigerian Nightmare” wants to keep doing this.
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