Kamaru Usman is the current UFC Welterweight champion. As one of the main draws, the UFC star has been blessed with a lot in his life. However, there is also a dark chapter in the life of the UFC Champion. While the ‘Nigerian Nightmare’ Kamaru Usman was climbing the steps to stardom, his father Muhammad Usman was imprisoned. This was quite a setback in the life of the fighter. The UFC star opened up about the toughest phase of his life in an interview.
Why Was Kamaru Usman’s Father Arrested?
Kamaru Usman discussed the imprisonment of his father during a podcast interview with Joe Rogan. The UFC Welterweight Champion disclosed that his father worked in the pharmaceutical business. He was arrested in 2009 for multiple charges of healthcare-related frauds as well as owning an ambulance company illegally. However, Kamaru Usman believes that the arrest of his father was a gross miscarriage of justice.
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He shared on the podcast, “One thing that I really haven’t really shared with anybody… very, very few people know that my father has been incarcerated since 2009. This is the first time I have really talked about it. My dad was… it goes to test the justice system here, man… it’s so crooked and so backwards… My dad was businessman and my dad built one of the very, very big business in Dallas.”
He further shared that it was ignorance on his father’s part rather than a willful wrongdoing. He stated, “He owned an ambulance company and… it was one of those situations where my dad hired the people that he thought were the right people to do what he didn’t know… they run the company into the ground and now because my dad was the owner of the company, they put it all on him, even though the people that were doing the things that were wrong in the company admitted to doing the wrong things. But what the court said is that ‘Oh because you own the company, ignorance is not an excuse, so because of that, we’re going to sentence you to 15 years.”
One of the most heartwarming revelations to come out of the podcast interview was that during his 15 years of imprisonment, Kamaru Usman’s father watched all his matches with the other inmates. In fact, the UFC star has specifically requested the UFC never to book his matches for a pay-per-view as these are not available to view in the facility.
The Welterweight champion finally got to fight with his father in the audience this year. Muhammad Usman was released earlier this year in February. In an emotional moment, the champ wrapped the belt around his father to celebrate.
