Oh how the times have changed for the ‘Three African Kings’! Going into 2022 Kamaru Usman, Israel Adesanya and Francis Ngannou ruled the Welterweight, Middleweight, and Heavyweight divisions respectively. But just within one year, all three have lost their access to the gold in one way or the other.
In UFC 278, Kamaru Usman was looking to enter the list of fighters with the most title defenses. He had already fought and defeated Leon Edwards before. On his way back to the top, Leon did defeat his fair share of opponents but none of them were very big names. The Brit also had to go through a very long break owing to Covid and other issues.
Naturally, going into the fight Kamaru was a clear favorite against the challenger Leon and the fight was going in the reigning champs’ favor. But Edwards displayed the beauty of MMA by not giving up well into the championship rounds and blitz-dropping Kamaru with a vicious kick to the head.
Adesanya’s story is a little bit different from his former Welterweight counterpart. The middleweight division for a long time saw many strong challengers but none of them could defeat the ‘Last Stylebender’. With time however, the Kiwi was displaying a noticeable drop in his performance as he fought Jared Cannonier and Robert Whittaker (for the second time).
But the former kickboxer had a boogeyman for himself in Alex Pereira who had beaten him twice already in kickboxing. Now the Brazillian followed his rival into the UFC and decided to duke it out on the set of UFC 281. Adesanya almost pulled through until ‘Paotan’ unleashed his fists like a sledgehammer and finished the reign of the long-time champ.
Francis Ngannou has been on a long hiatus following his victory against Cyril Gane and was expected to fight Jon Jones. But the negotiations with UFC did not go to plan and finally, they decided to part ways. Israel reacted to the news on social media saying, “History favors the bold, make sure HIS STORY gets told. As for Us…this will age well because black doesn’t crack!”
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History favors the bold, make sure HIS STORY gets told. As for Us…this will age well, because black don’t crack! ✊🏿 pic.twitter.com/jjZbiQMhyg— Israel Adesanya (@stylebender) January 17, 2023
What do you think is next for the trio?
