Last weekend, former UFC stars Nate Diaz and Jorge Masvidal fought in a rematch in a boxing ring. On the same night, boxing star Shakur Stevenson put his belt on the line against Artem Harutyunyan to retain his WBC lightweight title. But according to UFC fighter Belal Muhammad, Diaz and Masvidal put on a better show than the boxing champion.
Muhammad joined Bruce Buffer for an interview on his YouTube channel where he was asked about the Diaz vs Masvidal fight. ‘Bully B’ praised his MMA compatriots and said that the duo put on a better fight than professional boxers.
“Yeah I watched it. Obviously I wanted to see that whole card Anthony Pettis fight that was on there, Nate Diaz. It was a pretty good match. They both brought it, it was better than even the Top Rank fight that was on ESPN with Shakur Stevenson. I liked them two (Diaz vs Masvidal), I hope they do a trilogy.”
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‘Remember the Name’ was also asked who he thought won the fight. He stated that he felt ‘Gamebred’ landed the more impactful strikes and while Diaz landed more in volume, his punches were nowhere near as powerful as Masvidal’s.
Despite his advantage in punches thrown, the welterweight title challenger feels Masvidal did enough to win the fight and that the wrong fighter got his hands raised.
On the same night, Stevenson competed in his hometown of Newark, New Jersey. Unfortunately, the event was a bust in more ways than one.
Only 8,000 tickets were sold for the event and fans started walking out mid fight as they found it boring.
Meanwhile, Muhammad who has also been accused of having boring fights, will be aiming to turn that around at UFC 304 when he takes on Leon Edwards for the welterweight title.
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‘Rocky’ will put his belt on the line for the third time when he takes on Muhammad at UFC 304 in his home country. This fight is special for another couple of reasons.
Bully B has been the #1 contender for over a year now, but Dana White hadn’t been able to book him for a title fight despite having Colby Covington walk around like an old man for 5 rounds against the champion. So, now that the opportunity is finally there, the Palestinian American fighter will look to capitalize on it.
The second reason is that this is a fight almost 4 years in the making. The first time these two fought was in 2021, when the match had to be stopped after an unfortunate eye poke.
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Since then, both Edwards and Muhammad have been chomping at the bits for a rematch to settle the scores once and for all.
Now it gets a lot more interesting if Edwards actually manages to come out victorious again. Because this would open up the division for lightweight champion Islam Makhachev to come and try his luck at becoming a two division champion.
