Belal Muhammad caused the biggest upset on Saturday night as he silenced the home crowd with a surprisingly dominant performance over Leon Edwards.
Muhammad, the betting underdog, caused a serious upset with a wrestling-dominated performance over the Englishman, putting a stop to a dominant 12-fight unbeaten streak.
The pairing first collided back in 2021 at the Apex during the Covid-Era, in a bout which ultimately ended in a no-contest following an accidental eye poke by Edwards, leaving many frustrated in what was already a difficult time for the sports fans.
During the 3-years between the bouts, both men had gone on lengthy unbeaten streaks, with ‘Rocky’ adding names like Nate Diaz and Colby Covington to his resume, and not to mention his two wins over one of the division all-time greats in Kamaru Usman. Belal on the other side, kept himself busy with several solid wins over the likes of Gilbert Burns, Sean Brady and Steven ‘Wonderboy’ Thompson to name a few, making his shot at UFC gold inevitable.
Belal ‘remember the name’ Muhammad silenced the partisan crowd in the newly built Co-op Live Arena, with him looking almost unrecognisable from the brief time they spent together in the cage during their first bout. Muhammad showed much stronger wrestling than a lot of the audience was expecting, spiking Leon on his head with huge takedowns, eventually opening up space for him to get shots off against the defending champion as well, causing much more problems for Edwards in comparison to his most recent opponent in Colby Covington, who is often viewed as one of the companies highest level wrestlers, in which the Englishman made work off.
The 36-year-old Chicago man brought an end to Edwards’s 9-year unbeaten streak and became the first fighter in any of the weight classes below middleweight to become UFC champion at over 35 years old, ending the “curse” which has spread throughout social media sites over the last few years.
The new champion has several different options for his next outing, but a trilogy fight with Rocky is something he doesn’t see a point in, with Belal saying in the post-fight press conference “Yeah, I’ll give him a rematch, in three years the new welterweight king went on to say, “Let him work his way back up. I think it was a dominant fight. There’s really no need for a rematch and I don’t think he had that long reign of a champion where he’s entitled to a rematch. For me, I came to his hometown in front of his people and in enemy territory, so it was all a layup for him. But I blocked it.”.
