UFC, I Just Can't Quit You

Headkicks, Blood Smothering and a Chaos Unmatched in all of Sport

You could forgive Kamaru Usman for thinking he had it all figured out. After all, the former welterweight champion had spent the previous 19 minutes systematically dismantling Leon Edwards’ careful gameplan, imposing his will on the top challenger, a man who, himself, hadn’t lost a professional cage fight in almost seven years.

Following an embarrassing opening round that saw the former college wrestler dumped to the mat for the first time in his UFC career, Usman dominated, beating Edwards to the punch, pushing him into the cage, and tossing him down at will. When Edwards would finally scramble to his feet, Usman would be right there, digging ripping shots to the body and generally making it as unpleasant as he could for this man who had dared question his supremacy.

By the time the fifth round was ticking away, the bout seemed all but over. The announcers were openly speculating Edwards had quit on himself and was fighting merely for the honor of saying he’d survived all 25 minutes with the champ.

“If it wasn’t obvious enough, Leon is broken now,” announcer Din Thomas opined, referencing Edwards’ refusal to make eye contact with his cornermen between rounds. “…he’s embarrassed right now of his own performance. This is how you know a fighter is broken and Leon right now is broken.”

When the end came, it came in a hurry, ironic considering the challenger’s generally laconic approach. Edwards feinted a left hand, his most powerful weapon. He’d landed it previously in the second round, forcing the champion to take a step back, and spun one so hard over a ducking Usman’s head in the fourth round that the resulting whoosh of air may have shown up on some radars as a developing weather pattern.

Perhaps that explains why Usman quickly leaned to his left when he saw it coming, expecting, once again, to be a step ahead of the challenger? Instead, head met shin, a battle that rarely goes well for the head, and Usman’s reign and claim to pound-for-pound glory were both relegated to the history books. His body, devoid of animating spirit and somehow both rigid and limp at the same time, was testament to the only truism that matters in the sport of mixed martial arts—try as you might, it’s impossible to impose order on something so inherently chaotic.

After the fight, Edwards was beyond buoyant, brimming with energy, his Jamaica-by-way-of-Britain patois openly sharing with the world all the dreams he had for the future, fantasizing about how his life would change as UFC champ. Edwards had previously been famous mostly for the various indignities foisted on him, meme’ed and mocked by Jorge Masvidal and Nate Diaz, neither of whom can claim a UFC title on their resume.

"Look at me now!" Edwards shouted. "Look at me now!”

Usman, five defenses into a reign that had been compared to the immortal Georges St-Pierre, had been there once too. Recently he’d entered that other place, the dark place where top UFC fighters realize the pot of gold at the end of this particular rainbow isn’t as big as they hoped, the place where you start openly campaigning to fight Canelo or Jake Paul or a champion from another weight class, anything to add that extra zero to the end of a paycheck that suddenly feels a little too small.

Perhaps one day Edwards will be there too. But not last night. The broadcast ended with the new champion calling home, in tears as he shared the moment with his mother, the perfect ending to the perfect night.

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If Usman-Edwards was the sport at its athletic apex, the previous bout had been the kind of iconic shitshow you can’t find anywhere else. Paulo Costa and Luke Rockhold, two super-model looking men seemingly completely unprepared for the Salt Lake City altitude, huffed and puffed but never quit, battering and trash talking each other for three glorious, terrible rounds.

“I’m fucking old,” Rockhold told announcer Joe Rogan by way of explanation for his performance, the most relatable thing that’s ever happened during a UFC event.

In the third round an exhausted Rockhold took his hands off his knees long enough to scream “Fuck you!” at his opponent twice, before landing a blistering left hand. It wasn’t enough to win the fight—but it was enough to rewrite his legacy. After 21 fights and a brief reign as champion, Rockhold was finally more than a pretty boy masquerading as a cage fighter. He was a warrior, spent and battered but refusing to cede the battle with Father Time without howling into the wind.

The former middleweight champ spent the final 20 seconds defiantly and joyfully rubbing the blood pouring from his nose all over poor Costa’s face. It was the most MMA thing I’d ever seen, primal, powerful, disgusting, hilarious and devoid of class all at once—the epitome of this horrible, amazing sport I can never quite quit.