UFC 272 – Welterweight champion Kamaru Usman shares intel from inside the Octagon for Colby Covington-Jorge Masvidal

No one can match Kamaru Usman for the depth of his hard-won expertise on Colby Covington vs. Jorge Masvidal. The headliners for Saturday’s UFC 272 have each challenged Usman twice for his UFC welterweight championship. As Usman was winning all four of those fights, the champ piled up knowledge along the way.

Usman spent nearly 50 minutes inside the cage with Covington, knocking him out in the final minute of Round 5 in their first meeting in 2019, and then earning a unanimous decision in last November’s rematch. Usman went the distance in his first fight with Masvidal, winning a unanimous decision in 2020, and then knocked Masvidal out about a minute into the second round when they met again last April.

That adds up to 80 minutes, 12 seconds of total accumulated data on these two men for Usman, who recently sat with the UFC’s Megan Olivi and shared what he learned. He identified what each man will have to adjust to in competing against the other in the spotlight of the UFC 272 main event, beyond their years of shared history as training partners at American Top Team.

Usman also pointed to an X-factor, and projected how the fight could play out. Here’s some of what Usman had to say ahead of Saturday’s fight between Covington and Masvidal.

Editor’s note: The full interview can be found on ESPN MMA’s YouTube channel.

The real storyline … beyond the grudge:

“What stands out is the fact that Covington wanted this. … You [Covington] went down to South Florida [to train at ATT], and this guy…