Belal Muhammad promised to be a fighting champion, and now he’s keeping a close eye on all the potential contenders in the welterweight division.
After dispatching Leon Edwards to become champion at UFC 304, Muhammad immediately recognized fighters like Shavkat Rakhmonov as likely challengers to his title, although he admits that no one has been clearly defined as the No. 1 contender in the division. For once in his career, Muhammad no longer has to call anybody out, because with the UFC title around his waist, he goes from being the hunter to the hunted.
That being said, Muhammad happily discounts one familiar name who won’t make his list as a viable opponent — failed three-time UFC title challenger Colby Covington, who began chirping almost immediately after Muhammad won the belt in Manchester.
“It’s funny. He’s literally the biggest clown in the UFC,” Muhammad told MMA Fighting. “It’s embarrassing to see how he’s trying to grasp for any sort of attention and say anything. ‘Let me catch him outside.’ Bro, I wish I see you outside. Let’s see what you would do. I literally called him out since 2017 when I fought in Australia. This guy’s a coward.
“But that’s what he does. He shied away from that Ian Garry fight. He said it wasn’t worth his time. If he would have won that fight, his name could have been right back in the mix. So now he looks dumb. He’s a clown. I’m wondering what he’s going to do next. There’s nobody out there that I see him saying yes to. He’s going to wait and hope that Tony Ferguson comes back and fights one more fight and then he’s going to win that and say, ‘See I deserve to be in there, look what I just did to Tony Ferguson!’”
With a 2-3 record in his past five fights — and all three losses coming in title bouts — it’s tough to imagine Covington sliding back into another title shot without first earning several relevant wins. Covington’s most recent victory over a fighter on the current UFC roster came all the way back in 2018, when he defeated Rafael dos Anjos to win the interim belt.
Covington’s latest fight ended in disappointment after he dropped a tepid five-round decision to Edwards this past December. He hasn’t booked another matchup since.
Muhammad doesn’t even want to give oxygen to inflammatory trash talk that isn’t going to get Covington another chance to compete for UFC gold.
“There’s zero percent chance,” Muhammad said of Covington getting another title shot. “I said he sucked before the Leon Edwards fight and they gifted him the title shot. There’s nobody in the top five that he could beat. There’s nobody in there where I could see him and say, ‘Well, if he beats him, there’s a chance.’
“I don’t see him accepting any top-five fights and I definitely don’t see him beating any top fighters if he gets that chance.”
With Covington eliminated, Muhammad gave his thoughts on the contenders he considers legitimate in the welterweight division, beginning with Rakhmonov, who is undefeated with an 18-0 record and a perfect finishing rate in those 18 fights.
“He’s the boogeyman,” Muhammad said of Rakhmonov. “The guy that everyone thinks will dominate everybody. When I look at stylistically what I’ll be able to do to him and what I’ve seen, there’s nothing he shows me where I’m like, ‘Oh man, I’ve got to be afraid of this or that.’ He’s not a specialist anywhere. Obviously, he’s a specialist in finishing, but I’ve only been finished once in my life.”
While he has no problem accepting a fight against Rakhmonov if that’s what UFC wants, Muhammad would love to see Rakhmonov get another quality win on his record just to cement his spot as the No. 1 contender.
As impressive as Rakhmonov has been through his first six UFC fights, he hasn’t beaten a top-five ranked opponent yet.
“Even for myself, when you look at all the names I had to go through [to get a title shot],” Muhammad said. “Even after beating ‘Wonderboy,’ I still had to win four more fights to get there and I had to take a short-notice fight against Gilbert Burns. Alright, you’re just going to give it to him after [winning] the ‘Wonderboy’ fight? If him and [Kamaru] Usman fought, the winner would for sure deserve it.
“But when Leon won the title, there was a clear No. 1 contender. I was the clear No. 1 contender and they still gave it to Colby. But when I won the title, there’s not that clear No. 1 contender. Obviously, Shavkat makes the most sense just because he’s undefeated, but when I look at the résumé, he didn’t have to go through what I had to go through to get it. But it’s all up to the UFC now.”
Ideally, Muhammad would eventually like to add Kamaru Usman to his résumé as well, because Usman was the champion Muhammad was chasing when he started his long UFC winning streak. He never got that chance because Usman eventually lost the belt to Edwards, but Muhammad acknowledges that’s still a huge win he wants on his record.
“For me, that was the guy I was chasing for so long,” Muhammad said. “He was the champion up there and people were saying that he was the GOAT. He had that moment of Dana White saying he was the best welterweight to ever do it.
“For Leon to take that away from me and then me to go out there and dominate Leon, to do what Usman couldn’t do, and then Usman to say I stole his blueprint — for me, to have him on my résumé would be huge. For legacy and just to show the world, to show Dana White, what I would have done if I got that opportunity when I should have. I think legacy-wise, Usman has the biggest name for sure, but on three losses, it’s hard to give him the title shot.”
Whether it’s Rakhmonov, Usman, or someone else, Muhammad doesn’t really care who UFC throws at him for his first title defense. Muhammad also recognized fighters like Ian Machado Garry and Jack Della Maddalena as contenders on the rise, potentially only a fight or two from a title shot as well.
“Honestly, [Garry] knows how to win,” Muhammad said. “He figures it out. I think that’s a big quality to have, for you to just understand how to win and fight a certain way for every fighter. Him and Leon would honestly be a great fight next. I feel like that makes a lot of sense. Stylistically, it would end up being a good fight.
“[Della Maddalena is] definitely a tough matchup stylistically for any of those other guys in the division. But for myself, I see a path to beating him pretty easily. But I’m hoping that injury gets cleared up soon and we get to see him fight somebody.”
Right now, Muhammad targets a late 2024 or early 2025 return to action, and then Muhammad just wants UFC to start lining up challenges so he can knock them down.
“There’s not a guy in the division where I look at like, ‘Man, that’s a tough fight,’ or, ‘This is going to be difficult fight, let me shy away from this guy.’” Muhammad said. “There’s nobody that I shy away from.”
