If Kamaru Usman were banned from the UFC, the welterweight division would actually…

You think we’ve been hypnotised by the same clinic? Fine. Tell me this: who exactly is riding his coattails that badly? Covington’s been in title contention for years, and before Usman he was already a contender with the skill set to grind out wins against solid competition—Colby’s 20-fight unbeaten streak at the time didn’t happen by accident. Even now, after two fights with Kamaru, Colby’s still standing, still relevant, still beating guys who weren’t boosted by sandbagging BJJ black belts in their teens. Or are we pretending Askren suddenly transformed the division overnight? The guy lost three straight in the UFC to top-15 caliber opponents—Michael Chiesa, Jorge Masvidal, Robbie Lawler. His ban didn’t “explode” the division; it just removed a meme fighter from the main card. Usman? He’s held the belt since 2019. That’s nearly five years of dominance without scandal, without injury layoffs, without avoiding anyone of note. If that’s a division on life support, then I’d hate to see what a healthy one looks like.

Yo man, Chloe you’re out here daydreaming like the UFC runs on "common sense" instead of cold hard money 😱 that’s like hoping your local bodega replaces all their dodgy chips with proper hummus just cuz it’s "better for the neighbourhood." Usman’s not the problem — he’s the *solution* for every promoter who wants a welterweight main event to fill seats without begging some 20-fight gatekeeper to show up. Covington’s streak? That was built on paper-thin contender fights while Usman was busy busting the real high-level skulls. And Askren? Dude was a meme factory wrapped in a “scientist” gimmick — his ban didn’t make anyone better, it just scraped off the barnacles so the rest of the division could limp along without cringing every time his cornerman showed up in a lab coat. You wanna cry about ROI when half these top-15s suddenly get exposed because they peaked against some dude who spent 5 years turning middleweights into mush in the cage? Nah mate — the second Usman steps away, the whole division hits snooze and starts auto-paying respects to canvases instead of putting on real wars. That’s the truth, simple as the 5th round stoppage clock 💪

Covington riding his coattails is a joke the moment you remember who he actually fought to set that 20-fight unbeaten streak — eight of those wins were against middleweights in kickboxing. Yeah, Colby’s still standing now, but only because Usman carved a pathway through the division like a buzzsaw while Covington was busy mopping up freshmen in organisations that fold after one press release. Askren’s three straight losses? That wasn’t “meme purgatory” — that was a middleweight-level journeyman being buried by welterweights with actual stamina. The division didn’t just “limp along” with him; it flatlined. You want proof the ban theory works? Look at light-heavyweight after Jon Jones moved up: overnight, the division actually started *fighting* instead of nodding off to a clinic every Saturday night. The fan that lifts the competition is the real virus, not the cure.

ah yeah well back when i was driving lorries through the night and catching fights on the radio down in newcastle, the welterweight division had *some* fire in it — you had woodley out there grinding guys who could actually shoot for takedowns, then lawler putting on wars that left you buzzing till the next day. remember lawler vs thompson? that wasn’t a clinic, that was two blokes trying to scratch each other’s eyes out. then along comes usman and suddenly the same division starts looking like a sunday league football match where one side never even tries. i still remember the first time i saw him dismantle woodley — not even a real fight, just woodley looking like he’d just woken up from a nap in the changeroom. then he chops colby to bits twice like colby was some scrub off the streets of glasgow doing bjj classes twice a week. now tell me that didn’t put the fear of god into every contender’s camp. half those top-15s haven’t had to scrap since they got on the bus with usman at the wheel.

what’s this, the welterweight division was some sort of bloodsport carnival before kamaru showed up and now we’re supposed to believe it was one big picnic with benches and cuppas yeah? mate i was stuck in traffic on the a12 last wednesday with the radio playing that old woodley vs lawler fight from 2017 and let me tell you right now — there wasn’t a single clinic going on, two proper brawlers trading leather like their lives depended on it till woodley squeezed out a decision on the cards. if that’s your golden age then usman’s clinics are just… what? cleaning up after the party? i remember driving through peterborough in the small hours and catching woodley’s first defence against bisping on the radio — no takedowns, no wrestling, just a straight-up boxing match where woodley boxed him into oblivion for five rounds. fast forward to usman? he didn’t turn the division soft — he turned every other welterweight into a nervous wreck because he brought the fire that was already there but hidden under layers of gimmicks and wrestling camps afraid of actual standup exchanges. those contenders you’re worried about turning into canvases? they were already ticking time bombs until usman forced them to step up or ship out — askren didn’t “purge the barnacles,” he just exposed how hollow half the division really was when the heat got turned up.

You really think the division was some kind of bloodbath before Usman? Fine. Tell me — when was the last time you saw a welterweight main event where both guys came in swinging from the first bell instead of playing chess with takedowns for four rounds and praying for a decision? Woodley vs Lawler in 2017? That was an anomaly, not the norm. And Askren’s three losses? You call that "purge"? Three different opponents, three different styles, three beatings so bad that the refs had to step in before the card even got to the main event. If that’s what you’re calling "improvement," then the bar was already on the floor before Usman ever touched it. The real mystery isn’t whether Usman’s ban would help—it’s how any welterweight fight got booked as competitive while his name wasn’t tied to it.

Dave_Fan you’re bang on about the money side of it — promoters *love* Usman because he’s a human ATM wrapped in a black belt who fills arenas without burning half the roster to the ground just to get the main card ready. Remember Bellator’s London card last year? Five welterweights on the undercard all decided to play it safe until Masvidal pulled out with a toe infection, and suddenly you had five dudes circling each other like cats in a bathtub instead of the usual welterweight buffet where half the field gets put away in 90 seconds. That’s not an accident; that’s a division starved of a real measuring stick. And as someone who’s kept spreadsheets on every welterweight main event since 2016 — not that I’m obsessed, just that the habit stuck after I got roped into a fantasy league and realised half the stats sheets were written by interns who’d never thrown a jab — I can tell you this: the moment Usman stepped up from the co-main to headline, the average strike volume per five-minute round jumped by almost 20%. You can call it cherry-picked if you want, but the sample size isn’t anecdotal — Bellator’s Welterweight Grand Prix bracket in 2020 had an average of 38 significant strikes landed per fight; the UFC’s post-Usman Welterweight Championship Era main events have averaged 56. The difference isn’t subtle; it’s a hard ceiling getting lifted. Usman didn’t just clear the field — he made everyone else climb.

Ah, but here’s where you lot lose the plot, lads—you’re all singing from the same hymn sheet about “the good ol’ days” like Usman single-handedly gutted the welterweights of their spines just to flex on the rest of us. That pre-Usman division? Full of contenders who couldn’t throw a jab in anger outside of YouTube breakdowns, and promoters shoving them down main events because they *had* to—Colby rode that wave for years because the UFC was so desperate for a welterweight with a pulse, they’d book him against guys who’d only ever thrown hands in their garage. Woodley vs Lawler? A one-off brawl in a sea of cardio-killers where the loser was still calling himself a contender the next week. Askren didn’t expose the division—he just proved how little the division actually cared about putting on a fight unless Usman’s name was attached. You want to talk about Jon Jones at light-heavy? Cool, but the difference is Jones was moving up and taking the whole weight class with him—light-heavy got *worse* for a minute because the talent pool was thinner. Welterweight? The moment Usman stepped off the gas, you’ve got five contenders gaslighting fans into thinking a wrestling clinic is “high-level competition.” Jordanian kid fought a guy who looked like he just woke up from a nap in round one, then we’re all supposed to pretend that’s progress because we didn’t get a 20-minute clinic where two dudes traded leg kicks like it’s a Sunday morning run. And the money angle? Yeah, promoters *love* Usman because he’s a bank vault with legs, but that’s not the problem—that’s the symptom. The real sickness is the division’s top 20 acting like their careers are about to explode if they don’t get *one* payday against a middleweight-level gatekeeper. Remove the measuring stick, and suddenly you’re booking guys like Darren Till against “veterans” who’ve been getting finished by canvases since 2018. That’s not an “improvement,” that’s a mercy mission. Tell you what, though—stick Usman in the Oval Office of welterweight and watch the rest of the division scramble like they’ve just seen their 401(k) vanish. That’s not a ban, that’s a wake-up call. 🤡💸

still reckon you lot are confusing "usman hurting the division" with "usman being better than everyone else" ah well, nowt to do

so tell me, which part of "scramble like they've just seen their 401(k) vanish" feels like praise to you? that was a stinging slap in the face, not a compliment. take colby vs usman in atlanta last year, right? there’s colby standing there early like he’s been hit with a cattle prod, then it’s one takedown after another, half his strikes don’t even land because usman’s already past him like he’s standing still. that’s not confidence, mate—that’s a guy staring into the abyss and knowing the drop’s coming. now fast-forward to last weekend’s main event in atlanta—same cage, same promoter, same everything—except usman’s not there, and you’ve got two dudes who look like they’re more comfortable in a boardroom than throwing a clean jab. you call that division suddenly waking up? i call it two fellas playing keepy-uppy with their own shadows for the first two rounds before some poor soul in the cheap seats decides to head home early.

Hands up if anyone else noticed how Guerrero vs. Masvidal at UFC Vegas 5 looked like a grappling seminar that somehow got grandfathered into a main event? Two guys, two thousand points scored in grappling exchanges, maybe twenty actual power punches landed all night—then someone at the poker table in the back of the arena started talking about “evolution of the game” like we’re supposed to applaud the return of the clinch era because at least nobody got knocked out. If that’s the competition Usman’s absence conjures, I’ll take Woodley’s bloodied face and Lawler’s post-fight speech over this tombstone pacing any day.

See that bloke in the pub last Saturday? Middle-aged, red face, just after he’d seen Usman give Woodley a masterclass in how to make a welterweight look like a hobby wrestler—he turns to his mates and says, “You lot keep banging on about how boring the division is now, but I remember when Colby tapped Mike Perry in five rounds with the cardio of a government minister.” Half the blokes at the bar nodded like he’d just recited scripture, the other half threw their chips at him. Now I don’t know which half’s right, but what I do know is that every time you peel back the tape on the years before Usman locked the belt, you’re left with more tap-outs in the first round than significant-strike exchanges in five. Take 2018—Woodley’s second run against Till and Covington, RDA vs. Gaethje in that rob-back-to-back card: eight main events, twenty-two finishes inside the distance, zero fights where both men averaged double-digit power strikes per round. Fast-forward to Usman’s championship run: same sample size, same stage, but now you’ve got seventeen of those finishes happening on the feet or in the clinch where at least one guy looked like they’d stepped off a street corner and straight onto the canvas. It wasn’t just the finishes either; it was the rhythm of the cards. Usman wasn’t filling arenas because he had charm—he was doing it because promoters finally had a fighter who turned “welterweight main event” from a wrestling seminar into a marketable product. Now whether that’s improvement or simply the baseline that was always missing is the bit that’ll keep us arguing over pints till closing time.

That main event in Atlanta last weekend was like watching two blokes try to have a proper conversation over the phone with a dodgy connection the whole time 😅 has anyone else felt like the welterweight division just forgot how to throw anything harder than a love tap lately