Former UFC welterweight champion Kamaru Usman has been compared to Georges St-Pierre for most of his UFC career. However, ‘The Nigerian Nightmare’ believes he could beat St-Pierre, but there’s a bit of a caveat.

Speaking on the Pound 4 Pound podcast he co-hosts with Henry Cejudo, Usman argued the debate starts from the wrong question.

“I don’t really like to get into the conversation of greatest of all time. There’s no greatest of all time. It’s greatest of your time. That’s what it is.”

The former champion then explained how each generation excels at one facet or other facets, and that has led them to dominate MMA:

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“Each generation, each time, there’s a different champion, there’s a different guy that masters their time and they become the greatest of that time. I am a humongous fan of Georges St-Pierre, and I think Georges St-Pierre is great.”

Usman then applied the idea to himself. He added:

“I think in his time he was the greatest. And being the competitor that I am, that I was, I think in my time I was good enough to beat him. But that is my opinion. That’s not saying that’s exactly what would have happened. I’m sure he felt, because he was a dog, he felt he could have definitely beat everybody.”

Check out Kamaru Usman‘s comments below:

Usman did not declare himself better than St-Pierre, only that comparing eras is guesswork. The Canadian retired in 2017 at 26-2 with nine consecutive welterweight title defenses, a middleweight belt added at UFC 217 and wins over BJ Penn, Matt Hughes, Jon Fitch and Carlos Condit.

Usman’s case is not thin either. He took the 170-pound title from Tyron Woodley at UFC 235 in 2019, defended it five times and is widely considered as one of the greatest welterweights ever.

Kamaru Usman’s UFC career has taken a harder turn

The years since have not been kind. Kamaru Usman snapped a three-fight skid with a five-round decision over Joaquin Buckley at UFC on ESPN 69 in June 2025. He then moved up to middleweight for the main event of UFC Fight Night 281.

However, Dricus du Plessis beat him 50-45, 49-46 and 49-46, stopping all seven of the 39-year-old’s takedown attempts and out-landing him 136-92 in significant strikes. Usman disputed the scorecards and said he would sit down with his coaches to weigh whether to keep fighting, with a welterweight return still an option.