👀🔥Kamaru Usman names ideal opponents for his
return fight“If I had to pick in order I would say Brady, Shavkat and Buckley.
That what makes sense.”Advertisement
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March 25, 2025
Kamaru
Usman recently listed potential opponents in order of
preference for his next fight.
Usman would like to fight either Sean Brady,
Shavkat
Rakhmonov or Joaquin
Buckley when he returns to action. Usman’s first preference
would be Brady, who submitted Leon
Edwards at UFC
London last weekend. While Usman doubts Brady will be able to
get past him, “The Nigerian Nightmare” believes the Philadelphia
native’s title shot will be undeniable if he does.
“Honestly, what would make sense would be – If I had to pick the
order, I would say Brady, Shavkat, Buckley,” Usman recently said on
the “Pound4Pound” podcast. “That’s what makes sense. Because,
winner of Brady and I, we fight for the title next. Because if you
look at what Sean Brady
just did, he just took out a former champion. And then you fight
another former champion and if you’re able — he’s not gonna be —
but if he’s able to get through me, it’s hard to deny him that. He
should fight for the title.”
Brady has only lost to current champ Belal
Muhammad in 2022 and has since mounted a three-fight winning
streak. Meanwhile, Rakhmonov was expected to challenge Muhammad for
the title at UFC 315
but couldn’t accept the fight due to an injury. The undefeated
Kazakh has finished six of his seven UFC outings, going to the
scorecards for the first time in his career against Ian Garry in
his latest outing at UFC 310 this past December. And Buckley is
riding a six-fight winning streak with four finishes and comes off
a stoppage win over Colby
Covington.
Meanwhile, Usman is on a three-fight slump which includes
back-to-back title losses against Edwards followed by a majority
decision loss against Khamzat
Chimaev in 2023.