On Saturday night, August 20, 2022, Nigeria suffered a bad fate as Anthony Joshua and Usman Kamaru lost their fights on the same night.

While Joshua lost his bid to regain his boxing heavyweight title, Kamaru lost his bid to retain his title in martial arts sports.

Hopes of seeing the Nigerian-born British boxer regaining his lost heavyweight boxing titles against Ukrainian boxer Oleksandr Usyk was dashed again.

Late Saturday night in Saudi Arabia, Usyk defeated Joshua for the second time to defend his WBA (Super), IBF, WBO, and IBO world heavyweight titles.

While Uysk clearly dominated the first fight against Joshua, it was a bit different in Saturday’s rematch as the Nigeria-born fighter gave a better challenge even though it was still not enough to earn him the win he badly craved for.

At the end, Usyk did just enough to remain the undefeated champion.

In the UFC, despite dominating a major part of the fight, Nigeria’s Kamaru Usman lost his welterweight title to British fighter Leon Edwards early Sunday morning.

Edwards produced a stunning last-gasp head-kick KO to win the title against the stunned Usman at UFC 278.

Usman, nicknamed the Nigerian nightmare, is adjudged as the number one pound-for-pound fighter. He was looking to make the sixth defence of his title in a rematch against Edwards, and he appeared to be making progress until he was dealt the last-minute kick that left him in the cold.

Before the early Sunday fight, Usman and Edwards had faced off in the early stages of their UFC careers and it was the Nigerian who won unanimously in 2015.

Since outpointing Edwards in 2015, Usman had won 13 consecutive fights whilst the Brit was unbeaten in 10 fights.

Edwards, out of nowhere, produced a stunning last-gasp head-kick KO to win the title against the stunned Kamaru Usman at UFC 278.