Belal Muhammad was shocked to find out that some people still don’t even know what the UFC is.
In July, ‘Remember The Name’ climbed to the top of the welterweight mountain with a decisive decision victory over Leon Edwards to claim the division’s top prize in Manchester. Since then, Muhammad has been making the rounds to talk about his win, including an appearance on WGN News in his home city of Chicago.
There, Muhammad found himself having to explain to his interviewees what exactly he was the champion of.
“Chicago is epic. We had a parade for the Bulls, the White Sox, the Cubs, and now to finally get one for myself, it was amazing just to have family and friends there,” Muhammad said on the Anik & Florian Podcast. “The funniest thing was on WGN News, the big news network here, and the lady goes, ‘You’re the champion of street fighting?’ I was like, ‘Bro, do you still not know what the UFC is?’ It was hilarious, but it was just cool to be on WGN News.”
Belal Muhammad responds to being called a street fighter on one of Chicago’s largest news platforms, MMA still has a long way to go https://t.co/ld6AUjMliS pic.twitter.com/7ep6upY0KD
— Anik & Florian Podcast (@AnikFlorianPod) September 3, 2024
Belal Muhammad Reveals Details About His Training for Leon Edwards Fight
Since his sensational performance against ‘Rocky’ at UFC 304, Muhammad made an appearance on Joe Rogan’s immensely popular JRE podcast. While there, he shared some insight into how he prepared for his battle with Edwards on enemy territory.
“Especially because Leon’s so good at lateral movement… So for me I was like, I can’t be in kicking range at all,” Muhammad said. “I think I felt one body kick early and I was like, ‘All right let me step forward on it.’ So even with my mindset the whole camp, I probably took 2,000 to 3,000 body kicks and then moved forward on each of them.
“And if I backed up at all, my coaches yelled at me, ‘Look what you did here, you did this wrong, move forward, move forward. We can’t take one step back.’ I was writing it down, I was putting it in my head, ‘Do not take a step back, do not take a step back.’ And then it just came out in the fight.”
https://x.com/Home_of_Fight/status/1831109250623344978?ref=
With the win, Belal Muhammad extended his unbeaten streak to 10. Immediately following his title victory, Muhammad declared his desire to be a fighting champion with plans to defend his gold before the end of 2024.
However, that may no longer be the case after No. 3 ranked contender Shavkat Rakhmonov claimed that ‘Remember The Name’ has already declined a fight with him, insisting that ‘Nomad’ fight ex-champion Kamaru Usman to determine the first man in line for a shot at the new king of 170.
