“Go to a house party, it’s cage fighting!” Former champion Kamaru Usman shares party discourse with Mike Tyson that got him into MMA

Kamaru Usman is one of the greatest welterweights in UFC history. He reveals how he got started in the sport..

“Go to a house party, it’s cage fighting!” Former champion Kamaru Usman shares party discourse with Mike Tyson that got him into MMA

Kamaru Usman tells Mike Tyson how he got into MMA (Image via Imago/Instagram)

Former UFC welterweight champion Kamaru Usman appeared on Mike Tyson‘s Hotboxin’ podcast. There he discussed various aspects of the combat sports industry. During the podcast, Usman provided insights into his fighting experience and how he got into MMA.

Kamaru Usman recalled he was in college when he first came across the sport of MMA. He revealed how he and Jon Jones went to a party where he saw MMA for the first time. Kamaru Usman stated: 

So then I go to visit him and while we're there we get invited to this house party by a friend of the team to come and watch fights. I was just like "alright let's go I'm just going with my friends". So we go to the house party to watch fights and it's cage fighting!
Kamaru Usman via Hotboxin’ with Mike Tyson
YouTube video

Kamaru Usman is a former collegiate national wrestling champion and Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt. In 2011, he was a wrestling coach for Team Miller on season fourteen of The Ultimate Fighter. Usman made his professional MMA debut in November 2012 after failing to qualify for the US Olympics team in freestyle wrestling. In 2015, Usman won the The Ultimate Fighter 21 tournament and broke into the UFC.

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Kamaru Usman became the UFC welterweight champion in 2016 after defeating Tyron Woodley. He is one of the longest-reigning UFC welterweight champions. However, Usman lost his UFC welterweight title in August 2022. Leon Edwards knocked him out in the final moments of their fight. Edwards landed a head-kick with less than a minute left in the final round to become the first man to defeat Usman in almost a decade.

Kamaru Usman speaks on the trash-talking between fighters going too far

Kamaru Usman recently expressed concern about the escalation of trash talk in the lead-up to fights on the PBD podcast. He emphasized the existence of certain lines that are just not meant to be crossed. This was definitely about the Colby Covington–Leon Edwards controversy at UFC 296 press conference.

Kamaru Usman Colby Covington
Kamaru Usman speaks on trash-talking ( Image via X/Imago )

At the UFC 296 press conference earlier this December, Colby Covington made a controversial remark about Leon Edwards’ late father. Covington said that he was bringing the seventh layer of hell to Edwards and that they both would say ‘what’s up’ to Leon’s father while they were there.

Somebody fatally shot Edwards’ father when Edwards was a teenager. The comment angered Leon Edwards who threw a water bottle at Covington, leading to security intervention.

Usman believes in promoting fights but cautioned against crossing boundaries that can harm the sport’s image. Even Dana White expressed discomfort with Covington’s trash talk during the press conference.

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