#1 Welterweight contender Shavkat Rakhmonov doesn’t quite like champion Belal Muhammad feeling ‘greedy’ about him wanting to fight for an interim title in the latter’s absence.
Belal was set to fight Rakhmonov for his first title defense at UFC 310 in December this year. However, the champ had to pull out of the fight after a bone infection that will see him out for over a month, maybe more. So Rakhmonov floated the idea of an interim title fight since he doesn’t want to wait any longer.
However, ‘Remember the Name’ does not want him to fight since he claims he will only be out for 6 weeks and the two can go at it out once he returns.
Naturally, Rakhmonov thinks Belal is full of it for being greedy and in an interview with Ariel Helwani, told the champ to cool it down since if he wins the interim title, they could be in for a bigger payday.
“Belal doesn’t need to be greedy. If I become an interim champ, he’s still going to have a belt too. And it’s going to be champ vs champ, even bigger fight.”
There is a lot of sense in what Rakhmonov is saying. But from the champ’s perspective, an injury to the Russian in his next fight could see the champ having to wait for him to recover. Or someone else might become the interim champion.
He then might need another camp to prepare for another fighter, and that is if he’s lucky.
And since that man could be Welterweight legend, Kamaru Usman, Belal understandably doesn’t want to take that chance.
Rakhmonov targets Usman at UFC 310
Rakhmonov wants to fight the best in the division. And it doesn’t get any better than the ‘Nigerian Nightmare’.
“I’m ready to save the card if it’s for the interim belt. I believe Usman is a worthy opponent who is also probably gonna be ready to jump in to face me.”
Usman might be coming off 3 straight losses, but at least two of those fights were super close encounters. He dominated the first fight with Leon Edwards before catching a stray kick to the head. And while the second loss to the Brit might have been a bit weak, he then bounced back and fought middleweight contender Khamzat Chimaev on short notice and only lost via judges’ scorecard.
The common consensus remained that if the fight was for 5 rounds like Usman was used to, the Chechen fighter might have had to look down the barrel of his first UFC loss.
So, an interim title fight between the former champ and Rakhmonov, the man who is being touted as a future champion would be peak cinema at UFC 31o. And when Belal comes back, he can always take what will be rightfully his spot at the top of that mountain.
