“How times change,” Leon Edwards remarks. When the UFC welterweight champion ventures into the heart of the O2 Arena on Saturday, he will be doing so almost three years to the day after the venue’s veins suffered an untimely blockage.
In 2020, Edwards was due for a main-event showdown with former champion Tyron Woodley, only for the onset of the Covid pandemic to consign the fight to an ether of lost contests. “I was heartbroken, devastated,” Edwards says.
But how times change. And this, a defiant Edwards insists, is his time.
As the UFC returns to the O2 Arena for the third time in 12 months, yet for its first pay-per-view on this island in six years, Edwards’ name will top the bill as it did in 2020. The circumstances are altogether different, however. “Now I’m going back as a world champion,” the Jamaican-born Briton says, speaking in partnership with Wow Hydrate. “I can’t wait to go out there and prove to the world, to myself, to my team, that I am the best. This is my time – and I’ll reign for a long time.”
Kamaru Usman, who knows a thing or two about a long title reign, will be intent on ensuring Edwards’ is anything but that. When the Nigerian-born American and Edwards clashed in August, Usman was seeking a sixth straight successful title defence and a 20th consecutive win. Among the numerous talented fighters to have fallen to Usman was, in fact, Edwards, who was outgrappled for the best part of 15 minutes in a 2015 meeting. And when the old foes met again last summer, Edwards was outgrappled by Usman for the best part of 20 minutes.
With just one minute left on the clock, however, Edwards changed the course of his career with a single, cosmic kick. Usman, so dominant for so long, was suddenly dormant. As his vacant eyes pointed up at the lights in Salt Lake City’s Vivint Arena, Edwards’ eyes filled with tears.
“I think it’ll be hard to top that moment, I think that moment was kind of perfect,” says Edwards, 31, reflecting on the victory that crowned him as Britain’s second ever UFC champion. “The thing for me now is just settling the score, cementing what happened in Salt Lake City and carrying on my career.”
In a captivating post-fight interview, Edwards declared that “the belt belongs to no one”. So, how does that statement sit alongside his status as the 170lbs champion?
“I do feel like the champion, but I’m not gonna fool myself into saying: ‘This is my belt forever,’” Edwards explains. “I know that I have to work to keep it. It doesn’t belong to me; I have to earn it every single time. I’ll go out there and earn it again this week.”
Clearly, Edwards is out to avoid complacency, the kind that he believes contributed to Usman’s downfall.
“Guys who are that confident, they build this false sense of security, where they think they can’t be hurt,” Edwards says. “So, to finally be knocked out cold, it does affect a guy. But I’m not training as if it’s affected him, or, ‘He might come out different.’ I just think he’ll come out and be Kamaru Usman, which is heavy wrestling, pressure, hold you against the cage, try to take you down. He’s [nearly] 36 years old, I can’t see how he goes back and becomes a totally different [fighter].”
Usman’s age is not the only thing that may count against him in London, as Edwards sees it.
“This is his first time actually fighting in someone’s backyard. Now he’s coming into enemy territory. I have never lost in the UK as an amateur or pro; I thrive on the energy of the fans, having my friends and family there.”
Furthermore, Edwards enters UFC 286 with a cleaner bill of health than he had ahead of his last fight with Usman, in which the Briton also struggled to deal with the altitude in Utah.
“I feel way, way, way, way better,” he says. “The last fight camp, two weeks from this point, I was injured. I hurt my ankle, so I couldn’t run, I couldn’t do much. I was kind of working around the injury just to get me to the fight. Then I was leaving my camp to go to America, to try to adjust to the time, the air, everything. Now I’ve got no injuries, I can train all the way to fight week properly – and in my own gym. It’s a totally different ending to the camp physically and mentally.
“If he’s judging this fight off my last performance, it’ll be a total shock to him. I think this time, I’ll be able to make the right decisions at the right times, have my body react how it should react. And he makes a lot of mistakes; everyone has [habits] they do, and I wasn’t able to [exploit] them in the last fight, but I’ll be looking forward to doing that this time.”
And how times change.
