Belal Muhammad dismisses the notion that he was being dominated by Leon Edwards in their first fight.
Muhammad (23-3 MMA, 14-3 UFC) and UFC welterweight champion Edwards battled to a no contest in their March 2021 headliner after Edwards accidentally poked Muhammad in the eye early Round 2, and rendered him unable to continue.
Edwards (22-3 MMA, 14-2 UFC) was able to rock Muhammad with a head kick in Round 1, but Muhammad says they barely fought for that narrative to be drawn. He pointed to Edwards’ title-winning knockout against Kamaru Usman at UFC 278 to support his point.
“They’re going to say, ‘Oh man, he was killing you that first fight,’ but he’s literally the poster boy for why there’s five rounds, right?” Muhammad said on the Overdogs Podcast. “If that was the case, he was getting killed by Usman for four rounds, and we didn’t need the fifth round – but he won in the last 30 seconds of the fifth round. For myself, I get better as the fight goes on. We literally had one round, and it was a 10-9 round.”
Muhammad thinks Michael Bisping is partially responsible for that narrative, accusing him of showing bias for fellow Brit Edwards.
“People haven’t even really seen the fight for them to say, ‘Oh man, you got killed’ – because it’s just like a narrative, right?” Muhammad said. “‘Leon said he was going to kill him, anyway, so I believe Leon’ – Michael Bisping said that, but Michael Bisping is the most biased person in the world. You can say whatever you want to say.”
Unbeaten in his past 10 fights, Muhammad is expected to be next in line for Edwards. Their rematch has been linked for UFC 300 on April 13, but the matchup has yet to be officially confirmed.
