After chimaev beat Gilbert burns, Usman said in an interview “chimaev needs to get more wins before he fights me,” despite that majority of mma fans wanted to see that fight at the time. Meanwhile, Usman was talking about going up to lightheavyweight (skipping over middleweight due to Izzy being current champ and friend)
Ultimately, Usman fought khamzat on short notice once he was no longer champ, but my point was that I believe Usman was losing focus on the challenges in his own division, and he received tons of backlash over it.
Sorry I can’t find that article, it’s been a few years.