The UK fans inside the Co-op Live in the early hours of Sunday morning left following a disappointing result for the home fighter.
England’s Leon Edwards failed to make the third defense of his welterweight title after losing a unanimous decision to Belal Muhammad.
Many expected that given Edwards’ recent run of results against top tier opposition, he would be able to deal with the heavy grappling game of his challenger and out strike him on the feet.
This wasn’t to be the case as Muhammad regularly secured takedowns and even had success with his boxing when pressuring “Rocky” against the cage.
The constant output from the challenger kept Edwards on the back foot where he was able to make a clever adjustment that a former opponent of the defending champion’s picked up on.
Kamaru Usman Breaks Down The Adjustment Belal Muhammad Made And Where Leon Edwards Went Wrong
Former welterweight champion Kamaru Usman knows Edwards better than most due to sharing the Octagon with him on three separate occasions.
As an elite wrestler, Usman constantly tested the defense of “Rocky” which fans saw improve with each fight that he spent in there with “The Nigerian Nightmare”.
He spoke on a recent episode of the Pound 4 Pound podcast where he broke down where Edwards’ style worked against him in this fight.
“Now, I fought Leon three times. I would say for a majority of all those fights, Leon put his back up against the cage. Well, he didn’t put his back there, I put him there up against the cage. You pressure him, you pressure him, you pressure him, you take away his space and Leon just doesn’t necessarily know how to fight there when you take away his space. He wants to create the space so he backs up and when he backs up, next thing you know, he puts himself up against the cage.”
Crucially, Usman broke down what Muhammad did differently to his three fights against Edwards, which meant he was able to regularly take down and control the Brit.
“Now, when you fight a guy like myself and a guy like Belal Muhammad that can change levels on you, hey, this is what you’re going to get. We’re going to change levels, we’re going to wrap our arms around your legs and we’re going to take you down every time and that’s what I did in almost every one of my fights but Leon over the time got smart enough to know, ‘Hey, I can use the cage to my advantage to stand up or to keep myself upright and make it harder for people to keep me down,’ and that’s what he was doing.
“But, it’s almost like he counters what I do which is put him up against the fence and take him down by using the fence to stand back up and stay upright but then here comes the counter, the counter-counter shall I say, in Belal Muhammad in understanding that, ‘Hey, he uses the fence very well to stand back up so when he does stand back up, you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to change levels back again and I’m going to dump him either on his head or I’m going to dump him on his back again,’ and this was textbook.”
Read also: Israel Adesanya Reacts To Belal Muhammad’s Title Win Over Leon Edwards At UFC 304: ‘I’m A Fan Now!’
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