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Belal Muhammad grew to become the brand new UFC welterweight champion with a unanimous determination win over Leon Edwards to finish UFC 304 from Co-op Reside in Manchester, England.
UFC @ufc
REMEMBER THE NAME 🏆@BullyB170 defeats Leon Edwards by unanimous determination to develop into the NEW welterweight champion of the world!
[ B2YB @ForThePeople | #UFC304 ] pic.twitter.com/ZqUpxv04Tl
The challenger put collectively a robust first spherical. He landed an early takedown that established his wrestling as a risk, nevertheless it was the mix of his takedowns and boxing that helped him get the early lead.
Muhammad was capable of finding a house for his high-volume putting and landed one other takedown on the finish of the spherical for good measure.
The grappling continued to be an element within the second spherical. Muhammad dropped Edwards on his head and dominated the spherical after taking Edwards’ again.
SportsCenter @SportsCenter
BELAL DROPPED LEON ON HIS HEAD 😳 #UFC304 pic.twitter.com/88FACpmsiL
Nolan King @mma_kings
Muhammad is legit tossing Edwards round with relative ease. He simply dropped him straight on his head #UFC304
That rally was short-lived, although. Edwards got here out aggressive within the fourth spherical earlier than Muhammad closed the space, took him to the bottom and spent many of the spherical in dominant place.
Edwards made one remaining push to win the combat with beneath a minute left. He reversed place and rained down elbows on Muhammad, splitting him open and ending on a robust observe.
Sadly for him, it wasn’t sufficient to maintain his belt.
Aaron Bronsteter @aaronbronsteter
When he stored getting denied, Belal Muhammad made himself simple.
Muhammad will develop into the brand new UFC welterweight champion and is the primary UFC fighter over the age of 35 to defeat a reigning champion at 170 lbs. or decrease.
Muhammad’s win not solely provides him his first UFC championship, however brings some decision to their 2021 matchup that led to a No Contest. An unintentional eyepoke from Edwards left Muhammad unable to proceed and the combat was declared a No Contest.
Moderately than run issues again immediately, Edwards ended up getting a combat in opposition to Nate Diaz which propelled him to a shot on the title. Two wins over Kamaru Usman and a title protection in opposition to Colby Covington propelled him to the No. 3 spot on Bleacher Report’s pound-for-pound checklist.
In the meantime, Muhammad continued racking up wins. The Chicago native picked up wins over Stephen Thompson, Vicente Luque and Gilbert Burns on his method to lastly getting a title shot.
Now he is aware of there is a new wave of welterweight title contenders coming for him.
“When my profession is all stated and completed, I wish to be the man that beat each single nice man in my period, each man that they thought would beat me,” he stated in an interview with “The Schmo” (h/t Christopher De Santiago of Sports activities Illustrated). “I wish to stroll by means of all of them, whoever it’s, line them up. You may have Shavkat, you may have Ian Garry, you may have JDM, all these guys. I do not assume any of them are actually scheduled to combat proper now, however whoever the UFC places in entrance of me.”
Shavkat Rakhmonov is the obvious contender outdoors of a rematch with Edwards. Nevertheless, Jack Della Maddalena and Ian Machado Garry aren’t far behind.
Muhammad needed to put collectively quite a lot of wins to get up to now. Now he’ll must maintain successful powerful fights to take care of the crown.
