UFC News & FeaturesAfter spending most of July in the doldrums, the Ultimate Fighting Championship ends the month in impressive fashion with UFC 304. The Octagon on Saturday lands at Co-op Live in Manchester, England, with the expected British flavor. This time around, it comes with an array of relevant fights. Two Englishmen look to defend their titles in two bits of unfinished business atop the card. Welterweight champion Leon Edwards revisits a prior no contest against surging challenger Belal Muhammad in the main event, and Tom Aspinall—who got injured seconds into his first encounter with Curtis Blaydes two years ago—now attempts to avenge that loss when he puts the interim heavyweight title on the line in the co-headliner. Meanwhile, Paddy Pimblett gets the biggest test of his career against Bobby Green, and two interesting bouts round out the main card: Christian Leroy Duncan draws an all-action affair against Gregory Rodrigues at 185 pounds, and Arnold Allen looks to hold serve to stay among the featherweight elite with a win over Giga Chikadze.
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UFC Welterweight Championship
#4 P4P | Leon Edwards (22-3, 14-2 UFC) vs. #2 WW | Belal Muhammad (23-3, 14-3 UFC)ODDS: Edwards (-205), Muhammad (+170)
Edwards has clearly proven himself to be among the elite welterweights of his generation, but it always seems to be one step forward and two steps back as far as his reputation with the greater fan base is concerned. That goes as far back as his first few fights in the Octagon. A highly touted prospect out of England, Edwards lost two of his first four UFC fights in grimy fashion against Claudio Silva and Kamaru Usman but also managed to uncork an eight-second knockout of Seth Baczynski in between. After the Usman loss, Edwards slowly rebuilt his game and took the slow path towards relevancy. Refashioning himself as a slow-paced but thoughtful fighter, Edwards became a mainstay of the UFC’s European cards, where he’d usually put together a solid win that would be forgotten in short order. After enough of those victories, the UFC finally pulled the trigger and had Edwards headline a card in Singapore against Donald Cerrone, at which point it almost became a joke that his performances would quickly get overshadowed. Edwards handily beat Cerrone, only for most of the post-fight headlines to center around “Cowboy” fighting through illness after almost pulling out of the bout. A win over Gunnar Nelson led to a post-fight confrontation with Jorge Masvidal that figured to lead to a grudge match, only for the latter’s career to catch fire and allow him to pivot to bigger-money fights. Another clear win over Rafael dos Anjos didn’t lead to much of anything, as the coronavirus pandemic and subsequent travel restrictions kept Edwards out of action for nearly two years. Upon his return, he was greeted by another good-news-bad-news situation. Edwards seemed to have a win against Muhammad well in hand after a round, only for an accidental eye poke to end the fight in a no contest. With all that background, it was a bit of a shock when Nate Diaz agreed to fight Edwards in what figured to finally be a commercial breakthrough for Jamaican-born Englishman. However, once again, Edwards’ win was the last thing anyone was talking about after the fight. After handily winning 24 minutes of a 25-minute fight, Edwards got stung and stunned by the Californian in the closing moments, making the narrative about Diaz’s one big moment rather than anything “Rocky” accomplished. That seemingly established the narrative on Edwards for good as an obviously talented fighter who was patient to a fault, attempting to coast to a safe win at such a level that allowed his opponents to build their way back into the fight. After 14 months of waiting following the Diaz win, Edwards got the call as the best challenger available for Usman, who was now a dominant champion. Somehow, Edwards managed to flip the entire script on his career, at least for one night. Through four rounds, Usman seemed to be coasting to a clear decision win while Edwards was running out of ideas, enough so that the commentators were remarking on his poor body language and seeming lack of engagement with the fight. However, with 56 seconds to go, Edwards threw the head kick that would define his career, knocking Usman out cold and becoming the welterweight champion just when hope seemed truly lost. While that victory is what will live on, Edwards’ successful title defense in the rematch might have been the best performance of his career, as he effectively played neutralizer while also throwing out effective offense for a complete five rounds, seemingly striking the balance that had eluded him for most of his career. With that said, Edwards seems to be back where he started after his December title defense against Colby Covington, which followed his old script. Covington looked shot and past his prime, but Edwards never turned up the pressure even as he clearly won the first four rounds, allowing the NCAA All-American wrestler to at least save some sort of face by winning the fifth. Even if the constant feeling is that Edwards is a man who could do more, it’s hard to argue with an undefeated streak that has now run for nearly a decade.
Next up for Edwards is Muhammad, and in terms of career trajectory, this is a bit of a mirror match given the long road that “Remember The Name” has had to take to get here. Muhammad’s last fight before getting the UFC call in 2016 showed that he was certainly someone to watch. Well-practiced but not particularly dynamic, Muhammad did an excellent job of breaking down his opponent over a five-round championship fight. Once Muhammad made it to the Octagon, it was unclear if he could outwork and outlast his opponents in three-round fights, particularly after dropping two of his first three UFC bouts, including a quick knockout loss to Vicente Luque. From there, Muhammad settled in as a middle-of-the-pack welterweight who didn’t get much notice despite a solid amount of success. He’d pour striking volume on his opponents and generally show a well-rounded and technical game, but he gained a reputation as a decision machine who didn't seem to have a lot of championship upside, particularly after a 2019 setback to Geoff Neal. However, Muhammad hasn’t lost since, with the only thing close to a blemish being that 2021 no contest against Edwards; and he has shown an impressive amount of adaptability in the process. A 2020 win over bruiser Lyman Good saw Muhammad fight effectively as a sniper from range, and a recent run of victories saw him pivot to a grinding wrestling game as the matchups have called for. Of course, going from a low-powered striker to a control-focused wrestler hasn’t done much to endear Muhammad to the fanbase in terms of excitement, which made a 2022 knockout of Sean Brady—Muhammad’s first since 2016—particularly well-timed. Like Edwards, Muhammad’s last performance gave his detractors something to talk about. It was a one-sided win over Gilbert Burns that earned Muhammad a title shot. However, Burns injured himself early and Muhammad simply let him hang around, cruising to a one-sided but fairly tepid decision victory. This would be a harder fight to call if there wasn’t a round of footage to go on that seemingly answered some questions. Muhammad tried to pressure early, but Edwards was in particularly sharp form as a sniper, taking his usual neutralizing approach but landing hard enough that he nearly scored a finish late in the first round. Muhammad figures to adjust from that first fight—he’s on the shortlist of best game planners in the sport—but it’s hard to see one point where he can leverage the fight open. Edwards figures to be faster and stronger, even if Muhammad tries to turn this into a grind. Edwards has enough advantages that he should take this easily on paper, but past history is the main point of concern. The same was true against Diaz, and the same was true against the 2023 version of Covington, yet Edwards still managed to find a way to let each of them into those fights; and Muhammad is a much smarter fighter in terms of looking for and taking advantage of his opportunities. If there’s one cause for optimism in that aspect, it’s that Edwards might just be a better fighter in rematches. He certainly seemed to be buoyed by having beaten Usman before when they fought for the third time, and with Edwards seemingly on the path to a dominant victory the first time around against Muhammad, it’s easy to see the champion coming in with enough confidence to break past his usual hangups about staying safe. There’s always a chance he could lose this, but the pick is Edwards via decision.
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Edwards vs. Muhammad
Aspinall vs. Blaydes
Green vs. Pimblett
Duncan vs. Rodrigues
Allen vs. Chikadze
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