Leon Edwards: If my body had continued to react like that I would have lost!



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Leon Edwards: If my body had continued to react like that I would have lost!

Leon Edwards stunned the UFC world after knocking out Kamaru Usman. Edwards decided to share the details and reveal how he felt before the match, but also in the first rounds. Things were not looking good for him. “In the back of my mind I thought, ‘Why is everyone getting tired?’ I was watching it thinking I won’t get tired because I’ve been here for two weeks, I slept in altitude at home – I probably won’t feel it,” Edwards said on The MMA Hour.

“So I was watching it backstage, and I was thinking in the back of my head as I was warming up, ‘S***, why is everyone getting tired?’ When we went out there, after the first round, I can’t explain it, my body just shut down.

It was just a weird feeling. It wasn’t cardio, it was like my body just wasn’t reacting. In my head I could think what I wanted to do, but my body just wasn’t doing it. ... My 10 fights I had to get to this point to fight for the championship, I never looked like that in a fight, ever.

Even when I was fighting, I was looking ahead like, ‘Man, what the hell is going on? Just keep pushing. I know he’s crafty and the body is feeling it, but just keep working and stay focused. It’s never over until it’s over.’ I stayed in there and got the clean head kick KO.

... If my body was reacting the way it was in the first round, the fight would have gone a totally different way. The first round I felt normal. Then after that, my body just kind of shut down on me. If I would have felt the way I did in the first round, it would have been a totally different fight”.

Leon Edwards: God brought me here

Edwards felt a lot of pressure, and mentally it was not easy to endure such a fight. However, he managed to do what he wanted. “I was getting worried, for sure – 100 percent,” Edwards said.

“The moment was so big for me, and it’s just my luck for that to happen. I thought, ‘Man, there’s no way this can happen, that it can play out like this.’ I said it all week, I feel like this is my moment.

God brought me to this point to make this happen. That’s what kept playing in my head, there’s no way God brought me here for this just to go to decision and finish like this. I had to just stay focused and listen to my team.

Great motivation. They knew how to press my buttons, and they kept me in there and got the finish”.