Alexander Volkanovski slams 'pathetic' Belal Muhammad as the new UFC champion fires back at three of his biggest critics
08/02/2024 02:47 AM
As Belal Muhammad states that he'd like to return in November or December, the new UFC champion is finding himself embroiled in arguments with three world-class former title holders.
With a shiny gold UFC title now over his shoulder, Belal Muhammad is seemingly looking to start beef with a whole host of former champions – including the former featherweight king, Alexander 'The Great' Volkanovski.
Alexander Volkanovski fires back at 'pathetic' Belal Muhammad
Given how the vast majority of both fans and fighters were picking Leon Edwards to retain his welterweight title last weekend, it's no surprise that new king Belal Muhammad was in a particularly bold 'I Told You So' type of mood yesterday.
Speaking with Jon Anik and Kenny Florian, via their official YouTube channel, Muhammad would take aim at several former UFC champions for both their pre-UFC 304 predictions and their post-fight breakdown of his skillset – the first of which was the all-time featherweight 'Great'.
"Volkanovski said 'Man I think Belal's a good matchup for me if I fight him' – shut up bro, I'll smack the hell out of you… All these guys, there's nobody in the UFC that will beat me."
It didn't take long for a clip of the callout to reach Volkanovski, who took to X to post a rather backhanded message in response to the new welterweight champion's statement.
"You have every reason to hate on what I said about you being a good stylistic match up for me but I truly believe that, even after your last fight, you didn't show me anything different.
"You still mad because I accidentally missed your call…pathetic!"
Never one to back down from a callout, even with the size difference, Volkanovski also laughed at Muhammad for claiming that he'd fight him if they ever came face-to-face.
"Say 'shut up, I'll smack the shit out of you' to my face and see what happens."
Yet Volkanovski wasn't the only former champion who was in the crosshairs of 'Remember The Name' as the newly crowned 170lb champion also took aim at both Kamaru Usman and Demetrious Johnson.
Muhammad takes aim at former champions Johnson and Usman
In the same interview with Anik and Florian, he would go on to slam both Johnson and Usman for their analysis of the title fight against Edwards, both heading into the PPV main event and in its aftermath.
“I just want to be like 'I told you so' to all the people out there, all these so-called experts, even these fighters. You have Demetrious Johnson thinking that he’s a great analyst, he sucks. [Kamaru] Usman sucks at analyzing stuff.
"All these guys, they don't know what they're talking about, when you get in the cage with me, it's different. You think its slow and then you get punched in the face and think it's fast."
A reminder that Demetrious Johnson once went on a 13-fight winning streak in the UFC and has 12 total title fight wins in the promotion; with Kamaru Usman also once riding a 15-fight winning streak which included six title fight wins as he reigned as pound-for-pound king.
Similar to Volkanovski, it didn't take long for both Usman and Johnson to respond to the callout with the former welterweight champion stating: "Respectfully, it is slowly and kinda weak… Just saying."
"Hahaha I love it, I stick to my guns I thought Leon was gonna piece him up," wrote the former flyweight king, adding a laughing-face emoji to the end of his X post.
Luckily, Belal Muhammad will get the opportunity to prove the doubters wrong once again whenever he defends his welterweight title – and we've got an update on that front too.
The new UFC welterweight champion wants Rakhmonov next
Following his dominant unanimous decision win in Manchester, Muhammad would later note that his next opponent would likely be in the form of 18-0 undefeated star Shavkat 'Nomad' Rakhmonov.
Well, according to Muhammad, that title fight will hopefully happen much sooner than anticipated.
"People are telling me that Shavkat's going to kill me, that's probably the first tweet that came out from my haters right – I love that, I love that because I'm going to do the same thing to him. I'm going to go out there and I'm going to break him.
"Shavkat's next, after that who's next? You got JDM, you got Ian Garry – it's going to be one of them… I think November or December would be the most ideal thing, I want to get one [more] in before the end of this year."
A reminder that neither November nor December PPVs have been officially announced by the promotion; with November 9 reportedly targeted for UFC 309 (potentially Jones vs Miocic) in New York and December 14 for UFC 310 in Las Vegas.
