Kamaru Usman open to fighting Shavkat Rakhmonov on short notice at UFC 310: ‘He’s not my teammate’

Kamaru Usman and Shavkat Rakhmonov have shared a gym, but that doesn’t mean they can’t share the octagon on fight night.

UFC 310 is still in flux with welterweight champion Belal Muhammad having withdrawn from the scheduled main event after suffering a foot infection. Muhammad was to defend his title against Rakhmonov and it is not yet known if their fight will be rescheduled or if a new opponent will be found for Rakhmonov to stay on the Dec. 7 card.

Should the matchmakers need an elite name to step into Muhammad’s spot, Usman is ready for the call, even if it means squaring off with a fighter he’s often seen in the same training space.

“First of all, let me clarify something: We’re not teammates,” Usman said on his Pound-4-Pound podcast. “He comes in and trains in my gym where I was for most of my career until the last four or five years, which I’m still in that gym. That’s [Henry Hooft’s] gym, Kill Cliff now is the name, but he’s not my teammate per se.

“But if the UFC’s going to call who they think is going to be legit tough enough and man enough to step in there, is crazy enough to step in there on short notice and go out there and possibly shock the world, definitely the UFC know who to call when that situation happens. And if they do give me a call, I’m going to answer the call, we’ll get a couple of things straight and if we’ve got to do it, we’ve got to do it. I don’t shy away from any of that. I’ve done it on six days’ notice. I’ve done it on eight days’ notice and hey, this is only a couple of weeks’ notice.”

Usman is currently on a three-fight skid and has been patient with searching out his next opponent. Most recently, he lost a majority decision to Khamzat Chimaev at UFC 294 in a middleweight bout that he accepted on short notice. Prior to that, he lost back-to-back title fights against rival Leon Edwards and is now winless since November 2021.

There has been no love lost between Usman and Muhammad and while that’s a matchup he’s also targeted, he hopes Muhammad is given proper time to recover and suffers no longterm negative effects from his toe infection.

“That’s my personal belief, I do sometimes think he does act like a dork, but Belal, he’s a man,” Usman said. “He’s a man at the same time. He’s a competitor, he’s a fighter, and I would never want to see that happen to anyone. I’ve dealt with series of series of injuries and it’s never fun, especially when this is our livelihood. This is how he feeds his family, so I would never, ever want something like that to happen. So hope for a speedy recovery for Mr. Belal Muhammad.”