Belal Muhammad wants to make his first title defense before 2025.
UFC 304 forced fans to “Remember the Name” when Chicago’s Muhammad won Welterweight gold in his rematch against Leon Edwards last month (July 27, 2024). The unanimous decision win continued Muhammad’s 11-fight unbeaten streak (24-3, 1 no contest) and has set him up for some intriguing new match ups.
First on deck for Muhammad as a champion looks likely to be the top undefeated 18-0 contender, Shavkat Rakhmonov. However, former champion, Kamaru Usman, has also gone back-and-forth with Muhammad verbally. Ultimately, Muhammad expects his next fight to come towards the tail-end of the year, which could align with Conor McGregor’s hopeful return. Not that Muhammad would expect to fight alongside or against McGregor, of course.
“Hopefully [I’ll fight again in 2024], I’d rather fight than not fight,” Muhammad told MMA Junkie. “Hopefully, if I can get onto the last card of the year in December that’ll be great for me. I think that makes a lot of sense. You just never know if they don’t want to put anybody on McGregor’s card. But I doubt McGregor’s even fighting.
“So, they need somebody for that, and it’ll either be me or Alex Pereira who step up. I’m ready to go, I’m not going to be a Leon Edwards where I take a year off. I want to make this division great again, so let’s just stay active.”
McGregor has been constantly linked to a fight against Michael Chandler since the pair coached on The Ultimate Fighter 31 (TUF) last year. The fight was finally set to happen at UFC 303 until McGregor broke his toe a few weeks ahead of the event in June 2024. Therefore, it led to a replacement rematch of Pereira vs. Jiri Prochazka 2.