Belal Muhammad not sure he’ll ever cross paths with Leon Edwards again after handing him ‘embarrassing’ loss

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Just moments after he became UFC welterweight champion, Belal Muhammad joked that he would eventually face Leon Edwards again but he would make him wait at least three years before it happens.

That timeframe referenced how long it took Muhammad to get a second crack at Edwards after their first encounter — which came together on short notice — ended in a no-contest due to a brutal eye poke. Muhammad went onto win five more fights before eventually dominating Edwards over five rounds to take the title at UFC 304 in July.

As much as he enjoyed throwing out the three-year window between fights, Muhammad knows there’s a chance he might cross paths with Edwards again but he’s not sure the former champion ever actually earns it.

“Skill wise, he has the skill to do it but it’s all about mentality,” Muhammad explained when speaking to MMA Fighting. “Because you’ve seen it a lot with undefeated guys, when they get that one loss, a lot of guys don’t know how to take a loss. He hasn’t lost in eight years and he had this long streak. So it comes now from how does he come back from it mentally?

“Physically, yeah he has all the attributes, the skills to do it and when you’re looking at the lineup now, I beat a lot of these guys in the top 10 already. So there’s not a lot of guys you’re looking at ‘this guy is the clear No. 1 contender.’ So Leon could go out there and get one win and if it’s a huge win, there’s a possibility that he could get his name back in the mix.”

Edwards hasn’t booked a fight since losing his title, although he previously mentioned that he would like to compete again before the end of 2024.

The same goes for Muhammad, although he’s potentially circling a showdown against undefeated welterweight contender Shavkat Rakhmonov but there’s still no official word if that fight is going to happen or not.

Regardless, Muhammad has no problem facing Edwards again if he earns his way back to another title shot, but he’s not convinced it happens.

Muhammad points directly to the circumstances surrounding their rematch in July as perhaps the biggest obstacle for Edwards to regain his confidence to make another run at becoming champion.

“That was your home soil, the crowd was there for you,” Muhammad said about the card in Manchester. “The fight was tailor-made for you. You were supposed to walk through me. You said it was going to be easy and walk through [me]. That’s embarrassing.

“Now he has to figure out what he wants to do with his life. If he still wants to chase it with that hunger inside him.”

Muhammad also has concerns about Edwards’ future with his team after he saw tensions rising during the fight as he continued to win round after round in the title fight.

Unlike Edwards’ stunning comeback knockout win over Kamaru Usman to become champion — which came after his coach Dave Lovell gave him a fiery speech between the fourth and fifth round — Muhammad didn’t see that same kind of motivation this time around.

“It just all comes back mentally,” Muhammad said. “I don’t know if him and his coach are going to have a breakup party now because they looked pretty bad in the corner. There’s a lot of turmoil there.

“So I feel like there’s going to be a lot of blame and a lot of embarrassment coming from that team. A lot just embarrassment from [Edwards].”