UFC boss Dana White has labelled accusations that Leon Edwards cheated in his welterweight title fight against Kamaru Usman as "silly, ridiculous and absolutely unfair".
Edwards, 31, was losing his UFC 278 fight before producing a last-gasp head kick to knock out Usman with less than a minute left. 'Rocky' has since been accused of cheating on "multiple occasions", as MMA analyst Chael Sonnen said the Brit went unpunished after grabbing the fence to avoid being taken down by Usman throughout the fight.
White has played down Sonnen's cheating accusations, as he told reporters. “He became champion with a head kick. He didn’t win by grabbing the fence. He got absolutely dominated in that whole fight except for that couple of minutes in the first round. That’s completely unfair of Chael Sonnen to say that. That kid sucked it up, dug down deep and landed literally the perfect head kick with like a minute left in the fight. So I would say that that’s silly, ridiculous and absolutely unfair to say about Leon.”
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Edwards was warned but never deducted a point by referee Herb Dean during the fight for grabbing the fence, with Usman also being warned by Dean for committing the same foul. Sonnen questioned whether Edwards would have made it into the fifth round to deliver the fight-ending head kick if he didn't grab the fence to avoid being taken down.
"Leon was frustrated in positions and had no way out of positions to the extent that he cheated repeatedly, not once, not an accident, not the referee didn't see it. The referee broke the act five or six times, but Kamaru has never called Leon a cheater. Leon changed the position and got out of it three times by cheating," Sonnen said.
“You’re in a fifth round that you never should’ve been in, potentially. [Usman] takes a kick in a fight that he was winning, that he was trying to finish. He had the position that he needed to get the finish and his opponent cheated three times. Leon learned a lot in this fight. When Leon goes to prepare for Kamaru again, he’s going to have some confidence. It’s a strong word to say cheated, but what other word do you want to use?”
Edwards, who was also told he was "lucky" to knockout Usman after losing most of the fight, hasn't responded to the cheating accusations. The Brit wants to make the first defence of his 170lb title in the UK, with White targeting a stadium instead of an arena to host Edwards' homecoming bout.
