UFC Fight Night Edwards vs. Muhammad is making a lot of hype. It is the first one following a big UFC 259, and the fans are still fired up after all the action seen at this multi-title event. Edwards is finally back in the ring, after almost 20 months of staying out of the same. Truth be told, it wasn’t because of the Brit but due to various circumstances that saw his matches being postponed or canceled. Muhammad was recently active, and because of his solid performance, he got a chance to face one of the top contenders in the division and prove his worth. It will be interesting to see him going against hungry Edwards because both of his previous losses came against the fighters with a solid background. According to Muhammad’s words, he evolved since. This will be a perfect test to see that.
Preview
Leon Edwards (18-3) is a guy that didn’t have any luck at all since COVID hit the world, and even before that. He was always in the mix for meeting with the welterweight division’s top names, but constantly experienced disappointments when it came to booking the bouts. On the other side, his match with Khamzat Chimaev was canceled three times for various reasons, and these two factors caused his 20-months absence from the octagon.
Prior to that, the Brit had one hell of a stretch, with 8 wins in a row, and the latest loss dating back to 2015 once Kamaru Usman defeated Edwards following a unanimous decision. His last three fights were against good rivals Donald Cerrone, Gunnar nelson, and Rafael dos Anjos, and Edwards defeated all of them via decision, with the one against Nelson being a split.
The 32-year old is an all-around fighter who knows his way around both on the ground and in stand up and has extremely good cardio and stamina.
Belal Muhammad (18-3) has one loss in the last eight matches, and that happened in January 2019 once he suffered a failure against Geoff Neal. That bout ended with Neal’s unanimous decision victory. It was Muhammad’s second loss from one gatekeeper, with the first one being vs. Vicente Luque in late 2016.
His last four wins came against Curtis Millender, Takashi Sato, Lyman Good, and Dhiego Lima, which, to be perfectly straight, aren’t some high-profile names in the division. Apart from Good and Lima, all other his wins came against mediocre fighters.
Muhammad’s fights are not attractive at all because he likes to take the battle to the ground and do a lot of wrestling. His cardio is excellent, as only six matches in which the Palestinian participated didn’t go to the distance. But, we say it again, all this was against mediocre rivals.
Prediction
Edwards is a more diverse guy in this match and will know how to restrain Muhamad’s efforts to take the fight down on the canvas. But even if the two have some wrestling action, the Brit knows how to defend and attack from that situation as well. From our perspective, Edwards won’t allow this to happen but will impose boxing and slowly start to chop Muhammad. We predict his routine win, probably via TKO, because he is at a much higher level than his rival, with all due respect towards Muhammad.
Pick: Edwards wins 0.37 at BetXChange
