Kamaru Usman, according to Dana White, is the greatest ever welterweight the UFC has ever seen. This is quite a compliment, since Georges St-Pierre, considered one of the overall GOATs dominated 170lbs for years. On the other hand, it is also easy to see why the UFC CEO would say that. After all, ‘The Nigerian Nightmare’ won season 21 of ‘The Ultimate Fighter’ in 2015 and then went on a fifteen-fight win streak in the UFC, falling just short of Anderson Silva’s record of sixteen UFC wins in a row.

Of course, amid this historic run, the former collegiate wrestler became the 170-pound UFC champion and the most feared fighter in the entire promotion. What makes Usman’s stellar achievements even more stellar is that he has done all of this with bad knees. How bad are his knees exactly? We’ll let Joe Rogan explain.

“Kamaru Usman, you want to hear something crazy, when he walks he has to walk backward downstairs because his knees are so bad. His knee hurt so bad and he was a welterweight champion of the world with those knees. And he was talking about it openly, he’s like ‘You can know my knees are bad, I’m still going to f**k you up.’ And he did he f***ed everybody up forever until Leon Edwards,” a wide-eyed Rogan told fitness equipment entrepreneur Burt Sorin on episode #2242 of the JRE podcast.

Usman has to come downstairs backwards so that he doesn’t have to bend his knees, which must be excruciating for him if he is forced to take such drastic measures. After all, the former champ even chooses to walk on grass, instead of hard pavement whenever just so he doesn’t put as much pressure on his knees- that’s how bad things are for him.

“But his knees are so bad that he would have to walk on the grass where everybody was like walking on the sidewalk just to take a little bit of relief,” Rogan added. Of course, this raises a very pertinent question for many.

How long has Kamaru Usman had knees?

Kamaru Usman’s knee issues go back to his collegiate wrestling days. At the UFC 286 press conference last year, ‘The Nigerian Nightmare’ opened up about his issues and revealed, “My knee pain has been bad for 10 years. I’ve had multiple meniscus surgeries and this is just from wrestling.”

In fact, it was Usman’s desire to be the very best in the world that compelled him to work and train like a maniac, leading to him developing knee issues that would persist throughout his pro-MMA career. But surprisingly, the former champ doesn’t regret it. “I was so hard on my body wrestling because I just wanted to be the champion, I wanted to get there. I was willing to sacrifice whatever it took to get there, but my knee pain has been bad since I crossed over to MMA. It hasn’t stopped me, I’m still whipping dude’s a**s,” a defiant Usman told reporters.

With age, his condition has gotten even worse, but that hasn’t stopped him from competing with the best of the best in the world. In fact, at this very moment, there are rumors that ‘The Nigerian Nightmare’ is set to fight young and hungry up-and-comer Jack Della Maddalena, with the winner probably next in line for a welterweight title shot.

One can only imagine how excruciatingly painful getting in the Octagon and fighting killers must be for Usman, but the man is just built differently, able to compete and win through sheer force of will. There cannot be any other explanation. What do you think about Kamaru Usman’s knee issues?