Gilbert Burns Not Surprised To See Belal Muhammad Becoming The New UFC champion

Belal Muhammad shocked many people by dethroning Leon Edwards from his hard-earned spot, but interestingly, Gilbert Burns saw it coming. The new welterweight champion wants to challenge himself against the best – belal wants Shavkat Rakhmonov next.

However, Belal recently suggested that he would fight the winner of Kamaru Usman vs Shavkat Rakhmonov.

“Leon is a great fighter, but whenever he was saying, ‘I’m going to knock this guy out’ — bro, it’s hard to knock Belal out.

The guy has a chin”
- Gilbert Burns @GilbertDurinho explains why he wasn’t surprised by Belal Muhammad’s @bullyb170 dominant title win via @MMAJunkie pic.twitter.com/kX3FeX77Or — faryal mohammed (@faryalmohammed) September 2, 2024

Gilbert Burns on Belal Muhammad dethroning Leon Edwards

In a recent interview with MMA Fighting, Gilbert Burns shared his thoughts on Belal Muhammad becoming the new champion.

“I kind of saw that coming,” Burns said, as quoted by mmafighting.com. “Especially [because] Leon is a great fighter, but whenever he was saying, ‘I’m going to knock this guy out’ — bro, it’s hard to knock Belal out.

The guy has a chin. Leon Edwards in the last, I don’t know, 10 fights, he has maybe one knockout against Kamaru [Usman]. Other than that, he doesn’t knock people out. On technique, striking-wise, Leon Edwards is very, very good, but putting everything together with the pace, with the volume, staying in your face with takedowns, dirty boxing, especially doing the camp with Islam [Makhachev] and Khabib [Nurmagomedov], I kind of felt that was the path for Belal to win — and he did exactly what he had to”.