Leon Edwards’ muay Thai coach Henry Cleminson rejects the notion the head-kick knockout of Kamaru Usman that forced the welterweight title to change hands at UFC 278 wasn’t lucky, nor was it a fluke. However, he does admit it’s probably something that couldn’t be repeated.
Edwards (19-3 MMA, 11-2 UFC) pulled off one of the most improbable finishes in UFC history this past Saturday when he finished Usman (20-2 MMA, 15-1 UFC) in the fifth round of their headlining bout in Salt Lake City. “Rocky” was down by a sizable margin on all scorecards as the fight was less than one minute from being decided by the judges, but then he took control of the situation and decided his own fate with the perfect kick.
Cleminson, who has been working with Edwards as a striking coach since just prior to his victory over Donald Cerrone in June 2018, said the head kick that put Usman to sleep was something that the team strategized and trained consistently through camp.
“It wasn’t a technique that I think was going to be there early doors,” Cleminson told MMA Junkie. “Without going into huge details about what we’re doing, there’s a lot of strategy. We drilled a lot of things with that. You can’t just go and throw a head kick, especially early doors. He’s probably going to be fresh, reactions are high. I thought it was a technique that was going to land later on with some of the work he’d done throughout the fight. I thought I would see him throw caution to the wind earlier on, but it was something we were strategizing to set up.”
Cleminson’s job, along with the rest of Edwards’ coaching staff, is to find tendencies and openings against opponents and figure out ways to expose them. Usman entered UFC 278 with 15 consecutive octagon victories, and only a few moments of real adversity along the way.
Still, though, every fighter has flaws in the way they operate, and Cleminson saw some in Usman.
“I was pretty confident that Usman at some point was going to move away from the punch to that side, and Leon saw it,” Cleminson said. “If you’re going to be ducking into head kicks, these things would happen. … I’ve pulled up some video and cut some video footage of the Colby (Covington) fight, (Rafael dos Anjos) as well, and he does it numerous times. I’m like, ‘This is a pattern forming. I think you can manipulate this.’ It’s all about timing.
“It’s not easy. I’m not saying you can just throw it, and it’s going to land. You have to have a bit of an element of surprise and a bit of strategy and timing. All the pieces fell into place at the right time for Leon. He’s that good. He was able to time it perfectly, which not many people can.”
The highest level of MMA is all about minimizing mistakes on one end and taking advantage on the other. Edwards and Usman could fight 100 times, and the sequences that resulted in the head kick knockout might repeat themselves, but that doesn’t mean it was luck.
“I’ll say once in a lifetime,” Cleminson said. “If it happens again, I’ll be a lucky person. I’ve been involved in a lot of fights, seen a lot of fights, and you’ve got fighters that perhaps might need a knockout or whatever, but how many times does that actually happen? How many times would that happen against the pound-for-pound No. 1 fighter in the world? Live on telly all across the world. It just doesn’t happen. It was certainly a once-in-a-lifetime kind of an experience.”
Edwards has said in the aftermath of his title win that he managed to pull victory from the jaws of defeat after what he considered one of his “worst performances.” Cleminson admits his nerves were growing as the seconds ticked off the clock, and Usman was on track for a win. Cleminson said he never felt like victory was impossible, though, so when Edwards landed the kick, he was shocked but not necessarily surprised.
“In the fifth round (the coaches) were both looking at each other like, ‘What’s going on? He doesn’t seem right,'” Cleminson said. “So we were worried. But to be honest, Leon, you don’t count him out. I think he found it from somewhere. Fair play to him. It was certainly worrying, but in true Leon fashion, keeps us on our toes.”
