As he chased his own opportunity to become a UFC champion, Belal Muhammad called out any number of top contenders, and Colby Covington often sat near the top of his wish list.
A three-time title challenger and one-time interim champion, Covington constantly occupied a spot near the top of the UFC welterweight rankings, but ultimately opted to face former friend Jorge Masvidal in 2022. He then sat out for more than a year awaiting another title shot, which arrived this past December. Covington came up short again in his third bid to become undisputed champion, losing a lopsided decision to Leon Edwards at UFC 296.
With a broken foot now healed, Covington has started looking toward his UFC return and he finally called out Muhammad as a potential opponent with Muhammad awaiting the scheduling of his own title fight against Edwards, which takes place at UFC 304 on Saturday. After chasing that fight for years only to have his callouts fall on deaf ears, Muhammad feels like now he’s returning the favor by scoffing at Covington asking to face him.
“That was honestly the funniest thing,” Muhammad told MMA Fighting. “I’m not even going to bring attention to it because then I’m going to have a back-and-forth with him. This guy’s a joke now. He understands he’s a joke now. So he’s trying to go out there and call out these bigger names now. He’s calling out me, he’s calling out [Charles] Oliveira. Ian Garry’s not worth it. Why, because Ian Garry’s a bad matchup for you?
“He knows that if he loses one more fight, it’s over. How terrible that last fight was, he’s desperate for something. He’s desperate for a win. I think he’s going to sit there and wait. Maybe he’s going to call out a [featherweight] or somebody and hope one of those guys bite on the bullet.”
Muhammad has moved beyond Covington as a potential opponent, but what about a possible showdown against former two-division UFC champion Conor McGregor?
As it stands, the Irish superstar still hasn’t fought since 2021, but was originally scheduled to face Michael Chandler at UFC 303 before a broken pinky toe forced him out of the fight.
Assuming the fight gets rescheduled, the matchup would likely happen at welterweight, and McGregor commented that he might consider chasing the title in that division while taking shots at both Edwards and Muhammad.
“Leon Edwards loves a decision,” McGregor recently said. “Then he’s fighting another decision guy, your man Belal. Not great times in the welterweight title picture.”
In response, Muhammad shrugged off McGregor’s suggestion that he would consider going for the welterweight title after eventually facing Chandler one day.
As much as he enjoys taking shots at McGregor on social media from time to time, Muhammad doesn’t realistically believe that’s a fight that would ever happen and it has nothing to do with disinterest from his side.
“Honestly, that would be hilarious,” Muhammad said about fighting McGregor. “It would be funny because I know that would never happen. Even now.
“We’ve seen him hugging trees, he’s just a weird person. Even in that interview, he looked like he was strung out on stuff and he was just calling out everybody, talking about everybody. I think Chandler’s going to beat him, honestly. I’m going to give Chandler that win, but you never know, right? Leon will still probably call him out after that fight, so I’ll let both of these guys lose and they call each other out and end up fighting each other for nothing.”
