Usman, 35, who outpointed Edwards in 2015, lost the title to the Jamaican-born Briton in August 2022, after dominating the 31-year-old until a head kick knocked him out seconds to the end of the encounter.
The Nigerian-American will take on Edwards at London’s O2 Arena on Saturday, and Usman has claimed that he is in a rare, violent mindset heading into the bout.
“I’m going into this fight with a rare mindset,” Usman declared during Wednesday’s media day.
“It’s time for me to get violent. I felt violent going into my match against Sergio Moraes in 2017 because of how I was treated by matchmakers, leading to my first-round knockout of him.
“Then when I fought Colby Covington in 2019, his comments around the world had me feeling so angry that I wanted to be violent and we saw how that fight went [Usman won via fifth-round TKO].
“Even when I had to quarantine and fight Jorge Masvidal in 2021 after Gilbert Burns caught Covid, I still dominated him and that’s when he started making all these excuses which filled me with rage so much that I wanted to be violent in the second fight and you saw what happened [Usman won via second-round KO].
“Now I’m starting to get that same feeling again.”
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