Despite Leon Edwards and his coach, Dave Lovell, uninterested in him, Belal Muhammad believes he’ll be the champ’s next opponent. There are still no words from the UFC to confirm this, but “Remember The Name” is hoping CEO Dana White will keep his promise to him.
Muhammad has only one thing on his mind right now: to face Edwards again and end the fight they had in 2021. To recall, the bout between the two was stopped after an eye-poking incident that affected Muhammad. Although both have witnessed nothing but victories in their next bouts after this case, Muhammad knows that the fight still has to be given a proper conclusion.
The 35-year-old already has an impressive five-fight winning streak, but to secure his shot to the title, the fighter also took the role of backup opponent when Edwards faced Colby Covington. Prior to this, Muhammad shared the promotion’s assurance that he would fight the champ if he could defeat Gilbert Burns, which he did. Unfortunately, after all this and Edwards defeated “Chaos,” White expressed a lack of interest in entertaining queries about the possibility of Muhammad being the next to fight the champ. And until now, there have been no words from the executive about the matter.
Muhammad, nonetheless, is still hopeful.
“I’m just hoping (UFC CEO) Dana (White) is waiting to do one of those epic announcements,” Muhammad told MMA Junkie. “But for me, I think it’s the time that’s going to happen. I feel like I’m ready for it. He said he wants to fight on 300. It makes sense but nothing is finalized until I get a contract. Once I get that, I’ll be satisfied. But for now, it’s just knowing that’s the last thing that Dana told me. I’m next. Dana is not a man to go against his word. We’re just waiting for everything to be finalized and set in stone and ready to go.”
Now, after all the promises, the role he took, and the bouts he won, Muhammad is certain that there are no other reasons to deny him of the title shot. And in case the company decides to make the announcement a surprise, he knows he’ll be more than willing to take it.
“We know who’s up next for the title fight,” said Muhammad. “Now, it’s the date, which doesn’t even really matter to me. I’ll fight next week. I’ll fight tomorrow. Just give me that title on the line, I’ll show up and be ready to go.”
