Belal Muhammad is the king of the welterweight division and he believes that his talents extend beyond the octagon.
Though it took Muhammad years to earn his shot at the 170-pound belt, he capitalized in dramatic fashion as he outworked Leon Edwards at UFC 304 this past July to become champion. Muhammad awaits his first title challenger, possibly the undefeated Shavkat Rakhmonov or former champion Kamaru Usman (or maybe both, as Muhammad has playfully suggested), but one name he’s ruling out is UFC superstar Conor McGregor.
McGregor hasn’t fought since breaking his leg against Dustin Poirier in July 2021, which hasn’t prevented speculation that he could leverage his drawing power into an immediate title shot should he return. Most recently, McGregor was scheduled to fight Michael Chandler in a welterweight bout at UFC 303, but even if that matchup is rebooked, Muhammad doesn’t think McGregor is close to No. 1 contender consideration.
“I don’t think he’ll look good at 170,” Muhammad said of McGregor’s welterweight move, in an interview with Submission Radio. “The dude doesn’t look good in life right now. He looks like he’s coked out. He looks like he’s on drugs. If he beats Michael Chandler, I wouldn’t even let him skip the line, because like I said, there’s guys that work for it. There’s guys that got here. And then even with the last fight with Colby [Covington] skipping the line for Leon. I’m like, I would never do that because there’s guys that are actually putting the work in. For legacy-wise, obviously I would want to slap Conor around, but there would be too much for it not to happen, right? It took him this long to fight this fight. It took him this long to make this fight happen with Chandler.
“So for them to even think that, ‘Conor’s going to fight for the welterweight belt,’ then I gotta sit here and wait two years. No, it’s not going to happen. I’ll give it to the guys that are actually fighting, guys that are actually putting the work in and guys that deserve it. Conor doesn’t deserve it. I hope he fights Chandler, because I feel bad for Chandler, that Chandler waited this long for it. So I hope that fight actually happens. But honestly, I don’t think it happens.”
The welterweight division has seen a surge of promising contenders, including Rakhmonov, Jack Della Maddalena, and Ian Machado Garry, plus a handful of fighters who aren’t far off from entering the top-10 such as Joaquin Buckley and Michael Morales. That’s a long list of names to skip over and that’s assuming McGregor and Muhammad’s timelines ever line up.
McGregor’s inactivity hasn’t stopped him from hurling insults at his fellow fighters on social media and recently bringing his popularity to the big screen with a starring role in Road House. Should his box-office muscle be enough to convince the UFC to grant him a title shot upon his return, Muhammad welcomes the opportunity to silence McGregor on the microphone.
“I want that interaction because I want guys that go back and forth,” Muhammad said. “It’s funner for me when guys talk. When Kamaru’s talking, it’s fun, and I love the going back and forth because I love trash talking. I love hearing it and then it makes the fight for me more exciting. When guys are the nicest guys in the world, there’s nothing that I can say and I wouldn’t even want to fake it where I’m talking trash to them. You can’t talk trash to ‘Wonderboy’ [Stephen Thompson]. You can’t talk trash to Demian Maia. So, for me, those types of fights are the ones that are exciting for me. Those types of fights would be fun.
“Conor’s lost his edge in the trash talk game right now. Even with his last couple of fights with [Poirier], it was just like, ‘Bro, what the... this is Conor?’ It’s like a fake version of Conor now. It would be fun to embarrass him on the mic.”
