UFC welterweight contender Belal Muhammad has his role for UFC 296, and his services may or may not be required on fight night.
Muhammad will be the backup for the main event welterweight title fight between champ Leon Edwards and challenger Colby Covington.
In addition to the main event, two other key welterweight matchups are on the card, and Muhammad has been keeping a close eye on all of his divisional peers. Shavkat Rakhmonov takes on Stephen Thompson and Vicente Luque faces Ian Machado Garry on the main card.
Muhammad is likely to find himself watching all of these bouts unfold from cageside as the services of a backup fighter have yet to be needed in a UFC event. However, he has studied his peers closely. Recently, Muhammad gave MMA Junkie his thoughts on all of the big matchups in his division going down at the final event of the year.
Check out the No. 1 contender in waiting’s thoughts below as he puts on his analyst hat ahead of UFC 296.
Shavkat Rakhmonov's chances against Stephen Thompson
“That’s an interesting one. I’m excited for that one. I want to see if Shavkat’s going to try to wrestle him and take him down. Obviously, that’s the easier path to victory, I would feel. Because ‘Wonderboy’ on the feet, he’s just an amazing striker and he has great footwork. It’s a bigger cage, so it’s going to be harder for Shavkat to cut him off and shoot on him.”
“Shavkat says, ‘I’m not afraid to strike with him.’ Shavkat says, ‘I’m not afraid to go blow for blow with him.’ So, that one’s interesting to me. It all just depends on if Shavkat grapples or not – and it depends on the footwork and how he ends up cutting him off, or how he tries to figure out him. ‘Wonderboy’ is a difficult guy to figure out, especially with his footwork. For Shavkat, he’s a guy, we’ve seen him adjust. We’ve seen how tough he is. We’ve seen how much heart he has, how much gas tank he has. But now it comes down to IQ, and we have to see if he could use his IQ to win this fight.”
Drama surrounding Ian Machado Garry heading into facing teammate Vicente Luque
“That one’s interesting, right? Obviously I think it’ll take an effect on him, but I don’t know if he’s the type of guy that’s like – I feel like he likes the attention himself. I feel like he wants the attention. I mean, he records everything he does, so maybe he’s excited he’s getting this type of attention and that fight’s going to get more eyes, because more people are going to watch it. But I don’t know if he enjoys being the bad guy. I feel like he wants to be liked. So I don’t know if that’s going to take a toll on him. I just don’t like the fact that people are talking about families, wives and stuff like that. That’s stupid.”
“… I think for Ian, he needs to focus on the task at hand, and that’s winning the fight. That’s a tough fight. You have Luque who looked great against RDA (Rafael dos Anjos). He used a lot of wrestling that fight. I want to see if he’s going to bring it in wrestling this fight, because we haven’t really seen anybody shoot in on Ian Garry, especially with both of them being teammates. They both know who is winning in the training room. They both know who is getting the better of each other. I feel like you’re going to see right away what the fight’s going to be.”
“Is Luque going to come out right away and try to shoot on him because he thinks he can take him down or if Luque going to stay standing on his feet. Luque is a guy with great power, but I just want to see if Ian tries to use his length more, use his kicks more, side kicks more. Kind of like what ‘Wonderboy’ did to Luque with using a lot of footwork. It all just depends on gameplan. I’m a big guy on gameplans and fight IQ, and knowing what your opponent’s weakness is and exploiting it. I think both of these guys since they train with each other, they know what each other’s weaknesses are.”
Will Leon Edwards retain his title against Colby Covington?
“I was watching tape on both of these guys. I think it’ll be interesting. I think that if Colby is able to keep the pressure in Leon’s face, we’ve seen Leon break. So, Colby has to keep that pressure for 25 minutes straight. We know he could, but I just think that his chin is gone. I think he’s gotten rocked his last three or four fights. Got knocked out by (Kamaru) Usman, got rocked by (Jorge) Masvidal. A lot of time off, I don’t think that will affect him because he just has the same style of just throwing punches in bunches and shooting 55 times.”
“I think for Leon, I think mentally for him, it’s going to affect him if Colby starts talking trash to him. He gets in his head a little bit, he takes him down here and there, because we’ve seen Leon mentally weak too where he almost broke in the cage with Usman, that second fight. I don’t think he’s mentally as strong as he thinks he is. I know they say you get 30 percent more better once you get the title, but I don’t know.”
