As with any sportsman, looking back on previous performances is the best way to progress into the best possible version of yourself, monitoring where you may be able to improve.
Yet, it’s also intriguing to understand, as a fan, why a certain sportsman did what they did and when they did it, due to the fact in the moment you're able to lay your eyes on every aspect, and can come up with your own thoughts of what could be done differently.
But when you're listening to their thought processes, it can provide staggering insights into how their mind works on the main stage. Why they threw a certain punch, why they chose to do a certain pass, for example.
In a video posted by UFC themselves, where Kamaru Usman breaks down his first performance against Colby Covington and analyses the closing stages, it has already caught a lot of interest after only being published two days ago; amassing 300,000+ views .
The fight itself definitely entertained many at UFC 245. After the fight had taken place, Covington switched the focus of the fight onto how the media created a perception around it; he supposedly knew ‘going into that fight, a lot of people already had a biased opinion against me,' but when you are someone that causes controversy, making your views known on politics, culture and race, it’s no surprise.
Covington was going against ESPN’s No.1 ranked pound for pound fighter on the globe, surely he would’ve known what he was going into and how much the media would dwell on it?
For him, hindsight was his best friend as he delved into what didn’t go his way and what he believed people looked over, but after suffering a broken jaw and being on the receiving end of a TKO, I don’t believe for long there was much he could physically talk about.
With the video published by the UFC, that has a subscriber count of 12.6 million, it’s no surprise that Usman paints the picture that each of his moves served a key purpose, and that he dominated. In a sport such as MMA, mind games are so fundamentally important, through him doing this video, I’m sure it’ll provoke a response from Covington's camp.
This resultantly puts the Nigerian on a higher stool and gives him more ground to stand on when it comes to their press conferences and weigh-ins leading up to their second bout.
He mentions within the first 10 seconds of his intentions going into the fight, he wanted ‘to hurt him so severely he’d have to rethink his career,’ which, in itself, is a large statement to make. It could be something that may potentially fall back onto him when they see each other this weekend.
He also displays his mindset when he mentions instead of throwing a two, he threw a three, which worked for him and caught the American off guard. For fans to recognise how he picked up on something like that and how he can alternate his thought process mid-fight is something quite staggering.
Him throwing out statements such as, ’he was trying to get me off him, but he can’t,’ exaggerates his confidence in and outside of the Octagon.
The video does well to present how understanding Usman is of Covington's fighting style, but also how he combats it. He refers to the left hand of Covington that he often threw as something that’s key to his fight and that could’ve been detrimental to him.
Although in the back end of the video, when he gives praise to the ref for the eventual stoppage, he also keeps his underlying metaphor and dig at Covington as ‘it’s the referee’s job to stop you taking years of your life.’
With their second fight taking place this weekend, you could say this video has been been strategically uploaded to bring in more hype and interest for the fight itself, but it will also pose a large impact on the fans and subsequently the opposition camp.
All they're focusing on is getting revenge, yet where Usman speaks with so much confidence and comes across blase in places, it will just show how confident he is to do the same thing a second time around.