Why Belal Muhammad would rather 'torture' Leon Edwards than finish him at UFC 304
MANCHESTER, England – Belal Muhammad wants to beat Leon Edwards in convincing and dominant fashion.
Muhammad (23-3 MMA, 14-3 UFC) challenges welterweight champion Edwards (22-3 MMA, 14-2 UFC) in Saturday’s UFC 304 (pay-per-view, ESPN2, ESPN+) headliner at Co-op Live in Manchester, England.
After amassing a 10-fight unbeaten streak, Muhammad will both finally get a title shot, as well as a chance to run things back with Edwards. He wants to erase any doubt from their no contest in 2021.
“I want to torture him,” Muhammad told reporters, including MMA Junkie, at the UFC 304 media day. “I want him to realize how much better I am than him. When you go out there and get a finish, people are like, ‘Oh, you got lucky. It happened because of that.’
“I (want to) go out there and dominate him and beat him in all aspects of MMA – wrestling, grappling, striking, jiu-jitsu, get him to the point of making him want to quit. I want to torture him. I want him to the point of looking at his coaches and his coaches have nothing to say and they walk away because they’re embarrassed.”
Muhammad went as far as saying he hates Edwards and explained why this rematch is so personal for him.
“It’s very personal because when you look at his path to the title and the way he did it, it’s very similar to mine,” Muhammad said. “He had to go the long road. Nobody was respecting him, nobody gave him a shot, and I took a fight on short notice against him and he committed the foul, he injured me, and the fight got stopped because of that. On my end, it was my first main event. This was supposed to be my spot, my time to shine, and it was taken from me by him, and he wouldn’t give me another shot and then he tried to play it off like, ‘I would have won anyway.’ When you put that narrative out there, fans are like, ‘He’s probably right.’
“So from there on out, I just had that in the back of my mind – I had that bad taste in the back of my head this whole time that I want to see what would have happened. Then I’m dominating all these guys and they’re still disrespecting my streak – him, his coach, his team, they’re still saying he’s not next. We need somebody else. So the disrespect he had, he felt it, and he started giving it to me. So that’s what pissed me off. That’s what’s pushing me to hate the guy. That’s what’s making me excited to make him bleed, make him break.”
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 304.