Belal Muhammad wanted the big bad wolf, but it just wouldn’t materialize. Khamzat Chimaev has been a dominant contender in the UFC for two separate weight divisions, and no one wanted to call the man out. No one except Belal. Back in March, it seemed to be hinted at that the fight would become a reality but it never did. Belal went on to defeat Vincente Luque and then continued to call out Khamzat, but still got nothing. Muhammad spoke on The Fighter vs. The Writer to talk about continuously wanting to fight the undefeated Khamzat, but instead was only offered Sean Brady, who he will fight at UFC 280 Saturday afternoon as the prelims headliner.
I’m sitting there like Khamzat is not booked. Why am I not fighting Khamzat? That makes the most sense in the world because at the time, we’re the only two guys in the top five that haven’t fought Kamaru [Usman] yet. You’re hyping him up. I was calling for the Khamzat fight before Luque. I wanted to fight Khamzat. Even before the ‘Wonderboy’ [Stephen Thompson] fight I was like let me fight Khamzat and they kept just brushing it off. I was like OK, I just beat No. 5 [ranked fighter] in the world, he just beat No. 3 in the world with Gilbert [Burns], this makes the most sense. I thought that was going to happen. The whole time I’m calling for it, I’m hearing he has visa issues, he’s not going to fight. Then you started hearing the rumors about him and Nate Diaz and how does that make any sense? You see Sean Brady calling me out on Twitter and I’m like I’m not going to give this guy any attention but the southside Chicago comes out and you’re like let me start responding to him, we were supposed to fight before so when he’s saying stupid stuff like ‘you’re running from me,’ I’m like didn’t you pull out of the first fight? Then he has some loser manager on there starting to tweet out and then you get the trashy people from Philly commenting on my post ‘you’re scared.’ I’m like these guys are straight up losers. I’m going to wait for Khamzat or Gilbert. You see Gilbert and [Jorge] Masvidal talking about fighting each other, o bviously, if you’re Gilbert, Masvidal is a money fight and it’s a way easier fight than I am so that’s getting attention now, that’s getting annoying so me and Khamzat still makes the most sense cause they still hadn’t booked the Nate Diaz fight. Then my manager called me, ‘I want to get you on Abu Dhabi [at UFC 280], it will be huge for you’ and the last time I fought there was amazing. I always wanted to go back, especially now and then they sold me on Abu Dhabi and I was like me and Khamzat there, that would be huge. Khamzat’s still having issues, he’s not going to fight right now and all they have is Sean Brady, that’s the only one they have right now. Obviously, that’s the one the UFC’s trying to push on me. He has hype in the MMA community, he’s 15-0. Fans don’t really know who he is but the MMA community knows who he is. He has hype from fighters. He’s a guy the UFC thinks can be a champion so I if I go out there and walk through him, I’m not afraid to fight him. If I think I can be a champion, I have to go through everybody. I figured I’ll take it, let’s go. The Khamzat thing was they wanted to guarantee Khamzat a win so then they could give him the title shot next, cause if he fights me, I’m a tough matchup for him and they showed in the Gilbert fight by the fourth or fifth round, he’s going to slow down against anybody. I think they wanted to make sure to secure him a victory so we can definitely get that Usman fight, we can get some of Diaz’s fans. [Now] I want to just focus on [Sean Brady] and let’s see how it plays out with these other guys in the next couple of months, But yeah, it’s going to be interesting what happens with this division.
Belal Muhammad via The Fighter vs. The Writer
Belal Muhammad vs. Sean Brady goes down tomorrow at UFC 280 as the prelims headliner beginning at 10AM EST.
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