UFC Vegas 51: Belal Muhammad wins while honoring Ramadan fast, shouts out Palestine

Benny A. King

Once-prominent prospects, Belal Muhammad and Vicente Luque met in 2016 while both were at the beginning of their UFC careers. Both later had successful UFC runs and proved that they deserved to be ranked at the top of the division.

As soon as the event started, Luque took the center of the cage and began pressuring Muhammad to keep him with his back against the cage. In his turn, Belal trowed several hard body kicks while Luque switched stances. With 2 minutes left in the round, Muhammad surprised Luque when he changed levels and took him down with a double-leg. The American made good use of his takedown until Luque was able to get back up with 30 seconds on the clock.

Round 2 turned out to be another closely contested round, Luque kept his forward pressure while looking for calf kicks. Once again, Muhammad was able to take Vicente down at the two-minute mark.

In round 3, Luque kept stalking Muhammad. Just 1 minute into the round, Luque landed a short left hook that rocked Muhammad. Vicente continued stalking and landing hard punches on the American. Fortunately for Muhammad, he was able to land another takedown at the two-minute mark of the round. Luque then got up again and the round ended with the Brazilian landing hard shots in clearly  Vicente’s most dominant round in the fight so far.

In the fourth round, Muhammad was able to take Luque down quicker this time. After a couple of minutes of ground control, Vicente managed to get up once again. He proceeded to keep his forward pressure, but not really landing round-winning strikes.

After a closely contested match, the fifth round was up for grabs. Muhammad started the round attempting takedowns and landing counterstrikes. At one moment, Muhammad was able to take Luque down again and work to his back, the fight ended with the American landing punches while he circle away from the Brazilian. Clear round for the American.

After five hard-fought rounds, Belal Muhammad earned the unanimous decision. Muhammad was able to throw Luke off of his game with his wrestling-heavy game plan.

At the post-fight interview, Muhammad proceeded to call out Colby Covington, who he deemed as a “coward” for not fighting welterweights.

“You know imma stop calling for the champ because no one wants to give me that shot,” Muhammad told Daniel Cormier. “So let me get the big-mouthed Karen, who is out here calling out 155’ers.”

““Come fight a real 70’pounder, you coward.”