Kamaru Usman revealed on his podcast that he was the main training partner for Johny Hendricks ahead of Hendricks’ fight with Georges St-Pierre at UFC 167 in 2013, and was brought in to mimic St-Pierre’s fighting style.
Kamaru Usman never got to fight Georges St-Pierre. But for a brief period, he got to step into his shoes.
On a recent episode of his Pound 4 Pound podcast, Usman spilled the beans. He was the main sparring partner for Johny Hendricks before Hendricks’ showdown with St-Pierre at UFC 167 in November 2013.
Back then, Hendricks was on a roll. He aimed to snap St-Pierre’s eight straight title defenses. Usman, a newbie in the professional fighting scene, was roped in to imitate St-Pierre.
Usman later had a remarkable stint at the top of the welterweight division. But at that time, his primary mission was to help Hendricks topple “GSP.”
“I studied you a lot, even before I joined UFC,” Usman confessed to St-Pierre. “I was Hendricks’ main sparring partner. I was brought in to mimic you. So, I watched you a lot to help Hendricks. I had to commit.”
“I thought I was doing Georges better than Georges,” Usman added. “I’m throwing the Superman-low kick, I’m throwing all these things out. I’m shooting on him, trying to take him down, because I knew you would. It didn’t matter that Hendricks is a [wrestling] champ. I knew you would try to take him down. So, I’d been studying you for a while.”
Usman’s efforts bore fruit. Hendricks gave St-Pierre one of the toughest fights of his career. St-Pierre won via split decision, but the verdict is still disputed by fans and critics. After that fight, St-Pierre took a break from competition. Meanwhile, Hendricks and Usman went on to become UFC champions.
Usman’s achievements often draw comparisons to St-Pierre. St-Pierre holds the UFC’s consecutive welterweight title defenses record at nine. Usman holds the consecutive wins record at 170 pounds with 15 straight victories from 2015-22.
Usman admires his fellow welterweight great. He noted the similarity in their pre-fight rituals, which involve isolating themselves for mental preparation.
“That’s surreal,” Usman said after listening to St-Pierre talk about his pre-fight process. “I do almost similar things. I wasn’t taught these things. I lost the fight, Edwards, the second fight, because I had a lot of stress. But I was in the bathroom, looking at the mirror, talking to myself, putting myself in the scenario. I do that in my faceoff too.”
“That’s why most people, when they bring you back in, because most of us were main events for our last few fights, I’m sitting there, I’m crouched over, I’m talking in my head. They don’t hear me, but I’m talking to the guy in my head, and then we back up and then it’s time to go. But it’s a mental process and I’m in this process the whole time and I think a lot of it has to do with preparation. It comes from preparations.”