To survive, I hawked ‘akpu’, sold shoes, clothes – UFC champion, Usman

Undisputed welterweight champion, Kamaru Usman, says he hawked ‘akpu’, sold clothes and shoes for his mother to survive in Nigeria before he travelled to the USA.

Usman, whose dream is to become UFC’s longest-reigning champion, made this known in an interview with Channels Television.

“We grew up in the village, we farmed. As a small boy, farm boy, I used to hawk ‘akpu’, hot ‘akpu’ on my head. I came from nothing,” he said.

“There is just struggle every day, the struggle of how are we going to eat next week, next month. What are we going to do?

“We owned a small store where we sold clothes, we sold shoes, my mum sold bags, anything that we could sell, my mum was able to get and try to sell. My mum was a hustler and that is one of the things I respect so much about her as a woman with three boys.”

He added, “I think I have to just accept that and honestly, I don’t think I want her to this sport anyway. She’s got her thing, she’s doing gymnastics and for self defence. She does Ju-Jitsu because she has to learn how to control the situation if anything happens. I’m okay with those right now.”

The 33-year-old has won all 13 of his UFC fights and surpassed Georges St-Pierre for the longest winning streak at welterweight. Punch