Belal Muhammad, the first Palestinian UFC champion, revealed that he was once advised to downplay his Palestinian identity in order to advance his mixed martial arts career.
During a conversation at the Yaqeen Institute’s “Confident Muslim” event, Muhammad shared how early in his career, he faced pressure to stop displaying his Palestinian heritage.
“When I first was coming up on the outside of the UFC, I was undefeated, 8-0, 9-0, working my way to try to fight for a belt,” Muhammad explained. “And the company I was working for at the time, they were a decent sized company. And the owner of the company told me the first time I fought for them, I walked out with the flag and he said, ‘They paid me after everybody.'”
Muhammad described how after one of his early fights, he noticed something unusual about the payment process. “We go to the back room, when you’re not in the UFC, those other companies after your fight, you go to the back room, all the fighters are in there, and then they write you a check. And for myself, I was probably like the first or second fight of the night. We were in the back room, and we see him paying everybody before us… He paid the janitor before us.”
A few days later, Muhammad received a message from his manager conveying the company owner’s demand: “Stop being political.” When Muhammad asked for clarification, he was told, “Don’t carry the flag.”
“And it’s I’m just walking out with the flag. I didn’t say nothing about it. And this was probably 15 years ago. And I was like, now it hit me that people think about it like that. And it it annoys people that I carry the flag, right? The people that don’t want to see it,” Muhammad said.
Rather than complying with the demand to hide his identity, Muhammad did the opposite once he reached the UFC. “I said, I’m going to carry that flag higher. I’m going to walk out to Demi Fellowstein.”
Muhammad acknowledged that some have suggested his path to the championship was made longer because of his vocal Palestinian identity. “You have the people that’ll tell you that the long road that you took was because of it… They didn’t want them represented. They didn’t want them on the big board.”
However, Muhammad believes this extended journey ultimately benefited him. “They didn’t know that me taking the long road was the best road. It made me better. I fought the best people and it just kept sharpening me, making me hungrier.”
The timing of Muhammad’s championship victory came during a particularly significant moment for Palestinians. “Allah’s plan is the best plan. And his plan was for me to get the title when it was the worst moment in football [Palestine] history,” he stated, referring to the ongoing crisis in Gaza.
