Belal Muhammad (13-2) will be competing tomorrow night on UFC Fight Night 131 against Chance “Black Eagle” Rencountre (12-2), who will be making his UFC debut. Muhammad was originally scheduled to face Niko Price 11-1, but when Price was pulled from the fight, Muhammad was open to fighting anyone the promotion could find. Muhammad sat down with Karyn Bryant to discuss his mindset of not being picky about his fight selection, an issue that has been discussed more than ever after the widely publicized release of Yair Rodriguez, henceforth also known as the Yair Effect:
“You see all these ranked fighters nowadays saying no to all these fighters or guys on the come-up. In the old days it would be like, man, this guy’s on a three-fight or four-fight win streak. Let’s put him against another guy on a four-fight win streak. Nowadays it’s, wait, he doesn’t have a number next to his name. I’m not going to fight him. What am I going to lose my place in the rankings for? But I want to be one of those guys where, if it’s an exciting fight, I’ll take it. So if it’s a fight that makes sense, why not?”
If you’re up for a round of semantics, Muhammad’s statements of “if it’s an exciting fight” and “if it’s a fight that makes sense” does seem to leave some wiggle room that seems to stop him shy of the “anybody, any place” mentality, but the message being delivered is still a clear one to listeners: “I don’t want to be one of those guys who handpick opponents.” Muhammad does believe, however, that in the case of his teammate CM Punk, who made his MMA debut at UFC 203 against Mickey Gall, that was not a fight of commensurate skill levels:
“Honestly, in his first fight, a lot of people don’t give him credit for anything, but look at what Mickey Gall did to Sage Northcutt. Sage Northcutt was a real fighter, and he went in there and treated him like an amateur, and that was CM Punk’s first fight. People don’t know how hard a first fight is. He didn’t have any amateur fights. He didn’t have to go through any of that circuit. He literally was on the big stage, first fight, and he went against a brown belt. So I feel like this is a better matchup for him to show his skills and show how much he’s learned since he started.”
As for Muhammad, he already has the perfect scenario mapped out for whom he will fight next and how happy its outcome would make legions of fans:
“If everything works perfectly for me, Colby will go in there, get killed real quick by dos Anjos, and he wants a quick turnaround fight. So he thinks, oh, man, let me get a quick turnaround fight. Oh, this guy’s not ranked. Let me fight him. Then, I go in there and beat him up. And then, UFC cuts him and everybody’s happy.”
UFC Fight Night 131 takes place in Utica, New York from the Adirondack Bank Center in Utica, New York, with the prelims and main card airing on FS1.
Would you like to see Belal Muhammad get his wish of being paired against Colby Covington in the near future?
