The fighter, Kamaru Usman known as the “Nigerian Nightmare”, dominated the Las Vegas contest for the welterweight title. He won the mixed-martial arts (MMA) bout against American Tyron Woodley.
The UFC is the biggest competition in MMA, where competitors combine boxing, kickboxing, jiu-jitsu, wrestling and other disciplines while fighting in an octagonal cage.
Usman, 31, produced the performance of his career to dominate long-reigning welterweight champion Woodley.
He extended his winning streak to 14 and maintained his unbeaten record in the UFC.
In his post-match press conference he revealed that before the match he had fractured his foot and had been walking around in a supportive boot all week.
He started off the press conference by greeting journalists in Arabic before switching to Pidgin.
“Nigeria, I have told them, we would do it, I told them we never fail. And we have done it today,” he said in Pidgin.
Usman was born in Nigeria, but left Benin City for Arlington in Texas as a young child when his family migrated to the US.
Twenty-three years later, he is proud of his nickname, the Nigerian Nightmare, he told BBC World Service’s Sportsworld.
But he is not the only sportsman known as the Nigerian Nightmare – something he is aware of.
He invited two others with the moniker to his match – the former professional boxer Samuel Peter and the former Kansas City Chiefs American Football, Christian Okoye.
Usman, a former winner of the Ultimate Fighter TV show, began wrestling at high school in Texas and was a top prospect throughout college.
“It was kind of time to make a switch and not just be a wrestler any more, but to be a fighter and to go and make a living for not just myself but my family as well,” he told Sportsworld.
Athletes like Usman have been switching over to UFC from other disciplines as the competition experiences a phenomenal rise in popularity.
The trend is illustrated in UFC’s price – the competition was bought in 2001 for $2m by the Fertita brothers. They sold it to a group of firms in 2016 for $4bn, according to Forbes business magazine.
Culled from BBC Sports.
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