It took Belal Muhammad a long time to go from the streets of Chicago to the arenas of UFC. It was a difficult road to say the least but somehow the journey from being just another wrestler to being the UFC welterweight champion felt like longer, far more treacherous. But if Belal ever thought ‘it’s easy now’, former lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov is here to remind him it only gets harder to say on top.
The UFC welterweight champion joined the recently retired MMA great Demetrious Johnson on his podcast, where the two discussed a variety of topics for about an hour and a half but what really struck the cord with fans was Khabib’s advice to the reigning champion.
Before retiring himself after his father’s passing, Khabib was 29-0. He had won the lightweight title and he had defended it successfully. And now Islam Makhachev walks in those shoes and he intends to for as long as he can. And Khabib’s advice to Belal could be categorized as the same thing that has made Makhachev the ever improving monster he’s become.
Reflecting on the same, Belal told DJ:
The first thing Khabib told me after winning the title was like, “brother, now you gotta work hard. You don’t take your foot off the gas, you work twice as hard”.
Khabib’s advice is simple.
“Train harder, train harder and train harder. Because now, they are all coming for you.”
And he’s right. Days after winning the title, even while the giant cut on his forehead was still visibly red, talks of his first title defense had been had by the MMA community. Who is it going to be? Kamaru Usman – the greatest welterweight of all time, comparable to the great Georges St. Pierre. But then, he’s lost his last three fights.
Or will it be the undefeated Shavkat Rakhmonov, the boogeyman of the division?
The truth is, it doesn’t matter. Every single day, someone calls out the champion. That is the game. But having been on the outside, looking in for so many years, Belal is playing it smart.
Shavkat vs Usman for #1 contender?
When Belal won the welterweight title at UFC 304 in Manchester, he immediately told the press that he was going to be an active champion and fight the absolute best in the division. He has, in the past openly talked about how both Kamaru Usman and Leon Edwards had offered title shots to Colby Covington while he was still the #1 contender.
However, unfortunately, right now, nobody can tell who the best welterweight is, that is of course after Belal Muhammad himself. Leon Edwards had a rather short run at the top, so not him. Belal wants nothing to do with Colby. Jorge Masvidal is gone.
So that leaves him with Kamaru Usman and Shavkat Rakhmonov. Now he’s been dishing out verbal punishment to both those fighters on social media, trolling them with no end in sight. And as far as fans are concerned, this has raised his profile.
Credits: IMAGO
From their perspective, he’s gone from being a vanilla wrestler from the Second City to a man who drops other men on their heads, beats them up for five rounds and then talks trash to everyone in the vicinity who had ever doubted him. And people love him for this side of him.
But that again, brings us back to who he fights next? The most buzz has been created by Usman, who’s Twitter game is perhaps a notch better than Shavkat. So that feud is making the most noise but then Shavkat makes the most sense since Belal wants to fight the ‘baddest’ men the UFC has to offer.
Belal’s solution- beat each other up, whoever lives, fights for the title!
Now, nobody is sure if Dana White will go for it, since he already has 4 champions in the UFC right now, who are heavy grapplers, and they don’t tend to excite the laymen.
Until then, Belal can go on as many parades as people as throw for him.
