“Will he stay at middleweight? I don’t know,” the Australian said in an interview with the MMAarcade podcast. “That’s a fight I’m interested in, I like that fight. I would fight Usman at middleweight. I don’t think it’s a bad fight.”
“It doesn’t make sense for him to fight top-20, top-30 opponents. He was a linear UFC welterweight champion who defended his title multiple times, so he definitely deserves the right to fight the top of the middleweight division”
“How he does, we’ll see, but seeing fresh blood at the top of the game is always exciting. The Chimayev and Strickland fight brings variety and I like that. It makes things unpredictable and exciting. That’s what I’m here for, and I hope Usman stays. It’s going to be fun.”
Last weekend at UFC 294 in Abu Dhabi, Kamaru Usman lost by majority judges’ decision to Hamzat Chimaev, taking a challenger fight with “Borz” on short notice, while Robert Whittaker, the UFC’s third-ranked middleweight in July, suffered a sensational defeat, losing by second-round technical knockout to Dricus Du Plessis in a bout that was also billed as a challenger fight.