Leon Edwards is officially set to make his next title defence and it will be in a rematch with Belal Muhammad. The welterweight championship bout will headline UFC 304 in Manchester, England, this summer, Dana White announced Thursday.
In addition to that 170-pound main event, the co-main event will see Tom Aspinall attempt to defend his interim heavyweight title against Curtis Blaydes. A pivotal flyweight matchup between Muhammad Mokaev and Manel Kape, a fun featherweight tilt with Arnold Allen and Giga Chikadze, plus a lightweight scrap between Paddy Pimblett and Bobby Green were also announced.
UFC play-by-play commentator Jon Anik teased the Edwards vs. Muhammad matchup earlier this week when he wrote on social media that he had booked his flight to England for the July 27 event and had tagged Muhammad in the post, suggesting he’d be fighting on the card.
Both headliners are riding lengthy unbeaten streaks (the reason they are unbeaten streaks, not winning streaks, is because of the no-contest result the last time they were face-to-face inside the Octagon).
The two fought in March 2021 to an inconclusive result when the scheduled five-round Fight Night main event ended after less than six minutes of fighting. Edwards was looking solid in the opening round in his return to competition after a roughly 20-month layoff, yet 18 seconds into the second round an accidental eye poke rendered Muhammad unable to continue.
Edwards, 32, has gone 4-0 since facing Muhammad and has seen his star power grow substantially. The Jamaican-born, Birmingham, England-raised fighter defeated superstar Nate Diaz to earn a title shot, won the belt with a dramatic fifth-round head-kick knockout of Kamaru Usman before cementing his status as the UFC’s top welterweight with a unanimous decision in the immediate rematch with Usman.
The champ defended his title again in December, when he took four of five rounds against Colby Covington in a 25-minute bout that was far from aesthetically pleasing.
Muhammad served as the official backup fighter for that UFC 296 bout, and he was critical of the champion’s performance after the event.
“It was a joke to the division,” Muhammad said during an appearance on ESPN’s UFC 296 post-fight show, adding, “I need to get in there (next). I need to make the welterweight division great again because I’m going to come to fight every single fight. I’m going to be in your face non-stop, 100 per cent. There’s not going to be no breathing at all for Leon Edwards.”
Muhammad does not necessarily hold a reputation as an exciting fighter but he weaponizes pace effectively. In his five appearances since his first bout with Edwards, he has victories over former title challengers Demian Maia, Stephen Thompson and Gilbert Burns, and he picked up signature wins over Sean Brady and Vicente Luque.
There is no question this title shot for Muhammad, who will be 36 by the time the rematch occurs, is warranted, even if it might not be the most popular option with Shavkat Rakhmonov now 18-0 with a 100 per cent finishing rate.
At UFC 297 in Toronto in January, during a Q&A with fans and media before the ceremonial weigh-ins, former lightweight champion Frankie Edgar was asked about Rakhmonov and how he might do against Edwards, and Edgar was met with boos when he said he thought Muhammad should be next in line for the title shot and not the undefeated Kazakh.
This matchup has been in the works for months, however, the organization waited until after April’s UFC 300 to finalize plans. White explained earlier this year that Edwards was offered three separate opponents ahead of UFC 300, all of whom he accepted, however, none of those proposed bouts materialized. It is unclear exactly who those three opponents were, although Muhammad was not believed to be one of them.
UFC 304 will be the fifth event held in Manchester and first since 2016, when Michael Bisping defended the middleweight title in his hometown and avenged a previous loss to Dan Henderson in the main event of UFC 204. Edwards earned a submission win over Albert Tumenov on the preliminary card that night in his sixth UFC appearance.
July’s event will be the 25th UFC card held in England. The most recent was a Fight Night in London in July that saw Aspinall return from a one-year layoff following the significant knee injury he sustained 15 seconds into his first fight with Blaydes one year prior at the same venue.
Aspinall needed 73 seconds to finish Marcin Tybura in London, and he followed that up with a 69-second knockout of Sergei Pavlovich in November to win the interim belt that was introduced after champion Jon Jones revealed he’d be out of action with a shoulder injury.
With Aspinall from nearby Salford and Mokaev calling Manchester home, plus Edwards being from Birmingham, Pimblett from Liverpool and Allen from the Suffolk area, fans can expect the event to have a home vs. away feel to it like many U.K.-based cards have in the past. England’s Molly McCann is also expected to compete on the card in a women's strawweight bout versus Bruna Brasil.
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