Why do People Hate Leon Edwards?
Leon Edwards is a man that’s been through it all. He’s seen rapid success, early roadblocks and many fight cancellations that had those fights gone through, he would have been in a very different position now. It’s not just Rocky’s career that has seen highs and lows, this pattern also seems to be matching his reputation as he’s become a higher profile name.
I would like to document the shifts in opinion from his fight with Belal Muhammad to the lead up of his upcoming title defence, against none other than Colby Covington. In each of these key moments, I want to uncover why is it that Leon Edwards has managed to simultaneously gain so much adoration and hatred.
Vs Belal Muhammad (February, 2021)
Leon’s fight against Belal was the first he managed to secure during the 2020 lockdown. This wasn’t the plan, however, as he was booked against Khamzat Chimaev three times, with all three opportunities falling to the wayside due to COVID-19 complications from both fighters. Muhammad agreed to take on Edwards in February of 2021 and although we got to see Leon back in action after his 452 day hiatus, we didn’t see much.
After hurting Muhammad with a high kick in the first round, Edwards went into the second round confident, only to have the contest end prematurely due to an eye poke, rendering Belal unable to continue as he feared he had completely lost sight in his right eye. Although the no contest result left us without a conclusive winner (then again, many fights with a winner are similar in this metric), many were confident that Leon was at a higher calibre of skill than Belal was, and believed that first round was an encapsulation of how the full five rounds would have played out, although we will never truly know.
Intentional or not, Leon was (unsurprisingly) not praised for sticking his fingers in Belal’s eyes. If anyone benefitted from this affair, it was Colby Covington, who made a key update to his list of nicknames for fighters he disliked: ‘Leon Scott’ was now ‘Edward Scissorhands’.
Vs Nate Diaz (June, 2021)
Fast forward to June and Leon gets the chance to keep his unbeaten streak going (although he had received a no contest against Belal, no defeat was technically taken). He would prove his worthiness of a title shot by defeating the number one contender at the time… just kidding, he gets unranked Nate Diaz who was coming off a loss against Jorge Masvidal (and a subsequent 19 month layoff). This decision made pretty much no sense, it was a lose-lose for Edwards when it came to legitimising himself in the eyes of fans, but he did his best to look impressive, schooling Diaz in all aspects of MMA. All of this hard work, however, would soon be undone.
With a minute to go in round five, Diaz landed a sublime left straight as his opponent tried a wide counter hook which put Edwards on ice skates. Nate couldn’t capitalise on the damage, but instead found himself capitalising on the awe of fans watching, stealing Leon’s spotlight that day. Many forgot what Leon had been doing in the other 24 minutes of the contest and essentially wrote him off as someone who almost got knocked out by an old Nate Diaz.
The worst part of it all could have been the indifference to Edwards at this time. Not many had strong opinions on him despite his now ten fight unbeaten streak, and he largely stayed in the shadows, waiting for a fight while Colby Covington would get his crack at then welterweight champion Kamaru Usman, with a total of one win after his first loss to him.
It seemed people were calling for a Usman vs Chimaev fight than versus Edwards, which in some aspects was unfair. Edwards had racked up plenty of wins and the quality of opponents was to no fault of his own. Tyron Woodley couldn’t fight Leon due to the pandemic, Khamzat pulled out twice as mentioned before and Jorge Masvidal sustained some form of injury when scheduled to take on Edwards (the legitimacy of the injury was debated by fans as Masvidal would face Covington three months later).
Meanwhile, Khamzat took leaps and bounds in matchmaking after joining the UFC in 2020. After just two ranked wins against Li Jingliang and Gilbert Burns, fans were clamoring for ‘Borz’ to take on Usman. This might have been the most conflicting time in Leon’s UFC career, given he had done so much but recognition felt so absent in the title picture.
Vs Kamaru Usman 2 (August, 2022)
Leon would finally get his shot against Usman in August of 2022 at Salt Lake City in Utah. Unbeknownst to many, this was a rematch seven years in the making, as Usman had beaten Edwards via unanimous decision back in 2015. There were obvious deficits in Leon’s grappling back then, which would seem to cost him in their first fight.
There were some picking Edwards to exact revenge over his old foe, but the majority favoured Usman in another decision win where he would once again utilise his superior wrestling. For Leon, this was do or die.
After officially breaking Kamaru Usman’s 100% takedown defence with an outside trip, Edwards easily secured round one but proceeded to struggle massively in the next three (which he attributed to the altitude of Salt Lake adding to exhaustion), consistently being taken down and forced on the back foot when engaging with Kamaru on the feet. In the last minute of the fifth round, Leon Edwards lived up to his ‘Rocky’ nickname and knocked out Kamaru Usman when all hope seemed lost, a beautifully simple yet rattling head kick sealed his fate.
From this point onward, the world could no longer ignore Leon Edwards. People took notice, and they certainly had their opinions.
Reception to Edwards’ emphatic win was split into two camps:
- “Leon is the rightful champion, altitude hindered his performance and the head kick was executed perfectly”
- “That win was a fluke, Leon was getting dominated and the head kick was lucky”
The development of these two arguments will be discussed more thoroughly in the next section, but if one thing was agreed upon by all, it was that Leon went viral overnight. His post fight interview has 5.2 million views on YouTube, which surpasses Sean O’Malley’s interview after defeating Aljamain Sterling* and Sean Strickland’s interview after defeating Israel Adesanya (as of 03/12/2023). People attached to the raw emotion that Edwards displayed, getting chills after his speech where he detailed his humble beginnings and feeling second hand pride when he called his mother in tears, perhaps only just realising what he had accomplished.
Leon would get his chance to prove the haters wrong seven months later, in London, England. The rubber match against Usman.
*O’Malley’s views (all 10 million of them) would largely come from the UFC uploading his knockout straight after his victory, which the company has never done in recent times. Based on previous post fight interviews with O’Malley, it wouldn’t be too far fetched to say that if they didn’t upload the KO immediately (or if Leon’s KO got the same treatment), the numbers between Leon and Sean would certainly be comparable, although this is largely a baseless estimation.
Vs Kamaru Usman 3
After much speculation about whether Usman was injured or not, he and Leon were booked for March at UFC 286. Discussion was ripe in the weeks leading up, with the aforementioned separate schools of thought becoming more confident in their beliefs.
Those who vouched for Leon’s skills were eager to see him without the effects of altitude and with an added confidence boost, while those on the other side of the spectrum were waiting for Usman to show why he was considered one of welterweight’s greatest fighters, wanting him to put on a clinic against the new champ.
Leon was welcomed with open arms as he walked out to the arena. The crowd cultishly chanted “headshot, dead” in reference to Leon’s head kick heard around the world. As Usman walked out, a rain of boos poured over, as to be expected with enemy territory. That night, Edwards stood with added reassurance, he was the champion and those watching in the arena were on his side as he put up gun signs to Usman, reminding him of their last encounter.
As many of you know, the result was far from semantically conclusive. A majority decision leaned in Edwards’ favour, but many criticised him for blatant fence grabs (which he was rightfully penalised for) and some thought Usman had done enough to take the fight. Leon did make a good argument for altitude affecting his last fight, however, as he seemed to hold up much better across five rounds in London than he did in Utah.
While debate roared on for a little while afterwards (as it always does in MMA), people came to accept Edwards as the rightful champion and were excited to see what was next for him… which leaves us with our original question...
Why is Leon Hated?
Well, from everything we’ve seen so far, here are the main points:
The ‘What If’s?
Every win that Leon has had since 2021 has had some form of asterisk attached:
- Belal Muhammad — “the eye poke stopped the fight before it really started”
- Nate Diaz — “Nate could’ve finished Leon if he had more time”
- Kamaru Usman 2 — “Leon’s head kick was ‘lucky’ and he was being dominated”
- Kamaru Usman 3 — “Leon cheated with fence grabs and should’ve lost the decision”
The validity of these certainly varies. For example, Leon definitely grabbed the fence to avoid a takedown in their trilogy, and was deservingly deducted a point, but many people forget just how many fouls Usman got away with in his prior fight with Edwards, such as grabbing gloves while Edwards was on his back attacking submissions.
Either way, without certainty in his last few fights, Leon’s detractors have ammunition (which they’d likely find regardless) and because he isn’t as much of a talker as some of his contemporaries, he struggles to garner new support outside of his spectacular knockout over Usman.
Leon’s Rocky Schedule
We have waited nine months to see Leon back in action. He faces Colby Covington this weekend at UFC 296, and while hatred was mostly geared towards Covington for his lack of inactivity, it seems many have turned against Edwards for the same problem, along with his recent comments about pursuing champ-champ status, an issue I cover in another article (linked here).
Recency bias plagues the MMA community, and it’s not exactly a secret, the people who once rallied for Kamaru Usman to be defeated are likely the ones who wish for him to be champion once again. Perhaps we will see Edwards gain the fans’ love once more, only to quickly restore their ire with another extended wait between fights. Only time will tell, but one thing we know for certain is that haters will hate, and Leon is more than accustomed to that.
