‘I’m still a bigger name’ than all 170-pound contenders

Kamaru Usman isn’t ruling himself out of the UFC welterweight title race.

Belal Muhammad defends his welterweight title against Jack Della Maddalena in the UFC 315 headliner May 10 in Montreal. Shavkat Rakhmonov is waiting in the wings, and ex-champ Leon Edwards battles Sean Brady in the UFC Fight Night 255 headliner March 22 in London.

Muhammad expressed interest in a potential move up to middleweight to challenge champion Dricus Du Plessis, but Usman (20-4 MMA, 15-3 UFC) thinks he still has plenty of work to do at welterweight.

“If Belal wants to go up and fight DDP, then he vacates the title,” Usman said on his “Pound 4 Pound” podcast with Henry Cejudo. “Who cares? He hasn’t gone through the division to say, ‘Hey, I want double straps.’ No one cares, and listen, this is not me trying to hate or say anything negative about him. If he wants to do that, that’s fine. He can do that, but there’s a plethora of guys there.

“There’s all these new guys coming up. You’ve got JDM, you’ve got Sean Brady, you’ve got Joaquin Buckley, you’ve got Ian Garry if he’s able to get back to the winning column. Don’t forget, Geoff Neal is on that shortlist as well, you’ve got ‘The Nightmare’ Carlos Prates is on his way up. You’ve got (Michael) Morlaes who will be fighting (Gilbert) Burns soon. So, there’s guys coming that you haven’t really gone through the division.”

Former UFC 170-pound champion Usman is on a three-fight losing skid, but wouldn’t be surprised if one win resulted in him leapfrogging everyone else.

“Where does that leave me? With every one of those guys that I just mentioned, I’m still a bigger name than every one of them,” Usman continued. “And this is not me being any way, I’m still a bigger name than all of them.

“I’m still there in the top three of the division. I go in and I beat up somebody – from the company’s perspective, from my perspective, for our champion’s perspective, whoever has the belt at that time, I think we all know who the right pick is to fight for that title.”