Leon Edwards caught lightning in a bottle and ran with it at UFC 278. Since taking the title from a seemingly undefeatable foe, the Englishman has defended his belt twice and is now circling back to amend one of the few outstanding blemishes on his record. Edwards will face Belal Muhammad at UFC 303, who he faced back in March 2021.
Hopefully, this bout won’t end in the referee ruling it without a winner. Both fighters are, as always, bursting with confidence and bravado, but Edwards seems to be the more outspokenly confident of the two. “Rocky” recently spoke to The MMA Hour and declared Conor McGregor as his ideal next opponent.
The welterweight king targeted the only recently unretired Irishman, even with a crucial fight yet to be decided on 27 July. Edwards hyped up a clash with McGregor at Madison Square Garden, which would make for quite the spectacle, but first, he’ll need to deal with a surging Muhammad at Co-op Live in Manchester. Surging since the mishap.
Few would contest that the incident at UFC Fight Night 187 was malicious in any way, which is why trusty referee Herb Dean called it a no-contest over three years ago at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. Scheduled for five rounds, it didn’t get beyond the 18-second mark of the second round. Edwards’ thumb found its way right into Muhammad’s eye, causing it to swell and bleed. Prior to that, Muhammad had shaken off a slick kick to the head.
After that unfortunate end, Edwards went on to defeat Nate Diaz by unanimous decision and then conquer Kamaru Usman out of nowhere at UFC 278 to take the title. In an immediate rematch, he proved his head kick KO wasn’t all that he had, waiting out Usman to take the fight by majority decision. After that, Edwards defended the strap again, this time by beating Colby Covington by unanimous decision.
The double defeat of Usman was doubly impressive beyond just the fact that Usman was so dominant and even considered by many to be the pound-for-pound king at the time. On Edwards' total 22-3 record, Usman currently stands as his most recent loss. Only four fights into his stint with the UFC, Edwards had lost to Claudio Silva, won two to gain momentum, and then Usman quashed those gains by unanimous decision in December 2015.
Seven years later, Edwards was greatly improved and on a run of nine wins in the UFC. Of those nine, he headlined three events - one of which was the no-contest with Muhammad. Defeating Usman twice enhanced Edwards' record tremendously, essentially erasing that earlier defeat and surging him up the pound-for-pound rankings.
Muhammad has been just as impressive, clearly improving in different regards with each subsequent fight. He’s defeated Demian Maia, Stephen Thompson, Vicente Luque, Sean Brady, and Gilbert Burns to more than earn his shot at the welterweight top spot. Impressively, he had to jump in at three weeks’ notice to clash with Burns and still managed to win by unanimous decision.
The man born in Chicago went on a similar course-correction journey to Edwards. Muhammad lost two of his first three UFC fights, with the knockout at the hands of Vicente Luque in November 2016 being particularly venomous. Four wins later, Geoff Neal took a UD win to halt any momentum being gained. Six wins later, with the no-contest against Edwards aside, and Luque returned to his crosshairs.
Showing tremendous improvement even in the fight before against Stephen Thompson, Muhammad controlled the majority of the rematch while headlining UFC on ESPN 34 in April 2022. The previous knockout was very much on his mind through camp, so he devised a game plan that would oust Luque's KO potential. Muhammad went to ground in each stanza and used a kind of pendulum movement to keep the savvy striker guessing. Muhammad did get caught but showed superb resilience to push past a Round 3 scare.
While the defending champion often gets a bit of a bump in outcome considerations, it seems that Edwards is more heavily favoured than may be expected. When picking one of the top sites for betting on MMA, you’ll find odds of 11/25 for Edwards to win by any method and Muhammad out at 15/8. Both favour their striking, but Edwards arguably has an edge if the fight goes to ground.
Not only is it a black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu against a purple belt, but in the UFC, Edwards boasts a higher submission average of 0.42 per 15 minutes to Muhammad’s 0.17. This isn’t to say that Muhammad isn’t a fine grappler, as his takedown defence certainly showcased his wrestling ability, but more typically, if Edwards goes for a takedown, it ends the fight.
That said, the sample size recorded by UFC stats is smaller, and the challenger has found his striking game to land truer under this promotion, boasting 4.55 significant strikes landed per minute. Both fighters have impressed and clearly improved since they met briefly a few years ago. Edwards proved his titan-toppling display against Usman wasn’t a mere flash in the pan, and Muhammad has demonstrated his grit and striking ability relentlessly.
The odds favour Edwards, but if the champ doesn’t end it early, Muhammad has what it takes to dazzle the judges to a unanimous decision over five rounds. As he did against Luque, Muhammad can use his swift feet to evade shots for five rounds quite comfortably, and can even bounce back from more menacing shots that get through. He'll likely approach Edwards with a plan to take the fight to the ground or the walls where possible to smother the champ's shot at landing those big, sudden early shots that have won him five first-round finishes.
Conor McGregor is a crazy enigma in the world of UFC, so it's impossible to say what his next move will be. His audacious antics on the walk to the octagon and within it keep him a must-watch attraction for the UFC, and while his behaviour outside the ring is often unsavoury - when it catches the headlines, that is - he still boasts a hefty fan base in and beyond the world of MMA.
On 14 April, Dana White announced the Irishman's return. It followed what has been hailed by some as one of the best events in the company's history, UFC 300. Originally, McGregor was teed up against Michael Chandler, who sits sixth in the lightweight rankings and who, like McGregor, has only won one of his last four fights.
Since 2018, McGregor has lost to the almighty Habib Nurmagomedov, defeated Donald Cerrone, and then lost to Dustin Poirier twice - the most recent being in 2021. Chandler, on the other hand, lost to Charles Oliveira in 2021, followed by a loss to Justin Gaethje, a surprise win over Tony Ferguson at UFC 274, and then a loss to Dustin Poirier in 2022. At UFC 302, Poirier will challenge Islam Makhachev for the lightweight top spot. Importantly for viewership and importance within the UFC, this match-up has been warming up for a while.
The Ultimate Fighter: Team McGregor vs. Team Chandler in 2023 proved to be a record-breaking run for the show, and was long seen as being the warm-up act to a fight between the two. The show's run ended in August 2023, and on 29 June this year, the two will finally face off at UFC 303. It's not been as much of an explosive or outrageous rivalry as McGregor has cooked up in the past, but the heat will almost certainly get turned up as fight night approaches.
The question is if McGregor would then want to step up to welterweight to take on Leon Edwards, as the champ has offered, or perhaps a new belt-holder in Belal Muhammad. Either way would be a title shot and, naturally, a huge earner for the 35-year-old and the UFC. McGregor's three welterweight bouts have been against his long-vilified rival, Nate Diaz, which ended 1-1, and Cerrone, which is his only win since 2016.
McGregor vs Chandler will be contested at welterweight, per reports, which would put the Irishman in contention for another battle in Edwards' back garden. Despite the draw for the fans and the money it'd bring in, it'd be tough to wholeheartedly say that McGregor had earned a shot at the welterweight belt. Chandler, on the other hand, is ranked well in lightweight and might earn a good enough ranking in welterweight with a win to have a shot at Edwards. This is particularly because Edwards has already defeated most of the other top contenders to his crown.
Perhaps McGregor will stay unretired long enough to face the winner of Edwards vs Muhammad, but first, he'll need to get past Chandler. Likewise, the man offering up a rumble with the famed Irish striker needs to defeat a tricky opponent on the ascendency first.