Belal Muhammad made a big statement at UFC 280 and is looking to follow that up by fighting Khamzat Chimaev.
‘Remember the Name’ scored a decisive win on the preliminary card at UFC 280 against then-unbeaten Sean Brady. He stopped Brady in the second round, which broke Muhammad’s streak of five decision victories. The fight also won him a Performance of the Night bonus.
In the aftermath of his victory, the No.4-ranked UFC welterweight spoke about his future opponents in an interview with TMZ Sports. Muhammad mentioned that he is only looking to fight contenders ranked higher than him
“Yeah, I feel like, unless they have a ‘cuh’ in their name, I don’t wanna fight them. Colby [Covington], Kamaru [Usman], Leon ‘Rocky’ Edwards [and Khamzat], those guys, those are the only four guys that I need to fight. I went downward fighting Sean Brady, so I’m only looking upward now. I don’t think Colby is gonna take the Khamzat fight, like the people are saying. He’s only fought guys that are on losing streaks and he’s only beaten guys that are on losing streaks. So he has this whole court case, he has all these excuses so I don’t think he really wants to fight.”
After mentioning why he thinks Covington won’t fight Khamzat Chimaev, Muhammad made a case for himself to take on the Russian-born Swede:
“Khamzat and me make the most sense, especially if they’re gonna put us on the same card as Kamaru and Leon. That’s the clear path. We’re the only guys in the division winning right now, the only guys in the division that are on streaks. And we wanna fight each other, like we’ve tweeted out, ‘I’m down, you’re down.'”
Watch his complete interview with TMZ Sports below:
Belal Muhammad questions why Khamzat Chimaev and Colby Covington are ranked above him
After his UFC 280 success, Belal Muhammad rose a spot in the welterweight rankings to No.4. That puts him just behind Colby Covington and Khamzat Chimaev, who are at No.2 and No.3 respectively.
Muhammad questioned why the two preceded him in the rankings in an interview with Marc Raimondi of ESPN. He cited the lack of higher-ranked opponents for Khamzat Chimaev as reason enough to not have the Chechen-born fighter ranked above him:
“If you’re looking at Khamzat, all right, you beat Gilbert [Burns], but what other ranked guy have you fought? Your last fight, you missed weight by nine pounds. So why are you still ranked above me? Why is Colby ranked above me? He hasn’t beat anybody but lightweights and guys on losing streaks.”