Belal Muhammad Releases Statement After Eye Poke ‘No Contest’

Fresh from the hospital, Belal Muhammad updates us on the state of his eye following a nasty poke that called an early end to his main event fight with Leon Edwards.

Things couldn’t go much more wrong for UFC Vegas 21’s main event.

Originally set to be the long-awaited Leon Edwards vs. Khamzat Chimaev scrap, that fight fell through yet again after lingering COVID-19 symptoms saw Chimaev coughing up blood from training. A mad scramble for a worthy opponent led to #13 ranked Belal Muhammad stepping in … only to have his eye poked in the second round so badly the fight was stopped and declared a ‘No Contest.’

All of the event’s narratives — Leon Edwards returning triumphantly after a year and a half away, a long-overlooked Belal Muhammad finally getting a highly ranked opponent and his chance at welterweight contendership — crumbled in spectacular fashion off this bummer of an ending.

One small glimmer of positivity from all this negative business: Belal Muhammad’s eye didn’t take any permanent damage. Which is good because the poke was gnarly, as shown via these pics and gifs.

Later in the night, Muhammad provided an update on his situation through his Twitter account.

“My heart is shattered my first main event ended like that but God’s the best of planners,” Belal wrote. “I’m sorry to the fans and the UFC,

you deserved a full fight. Alhamdillah the vision is coming back and no permanent damage to the eye. I’ll be back and want to run it back, Leon Edwards.”

It’s extremely good news that the poke didn’t cause any serious damage, and opens up the possibility of a quick rebooking, which I think fans would agree is the best option to make Saturday’s mess of a main event right. Both of the UFC’s remaining March events are sitting at 13 fights a piece, which means there’s room given the new apparent ceiling of 15 fights per card. The UFC’s April 10th return to network television on ABC could also use some extra hype behind it.

The biggest hurdle to setting this back up could be Leon Edwards himself, who has shown himself to be a somewhat picky man to matchmake for in the past. Currently he’s campaigning to move right into a title shot against Kamaru Usman off the strength of his first round performance against Belal. We doubt that will gain much traction with the UFC, but it’s by no means certain a rebooking of Edwards vs. Muhammad is what’s next. Sure feels like it should be, though.