Former UFC welterweight champion Belal Muhammad ripped Ian Machado Garry for “hugging” Islam Makhachev at UFC 330.
Machado Garry lost a unanimous decision to Makhachev in the main event of UFC 330. Though the fight was competitive, Makhachev did enough to edge out a decision and mark his first official UFC welterweight title defense.
Following the fight, UFC president Dana White ripped Machado Garry for showing too much respect to the champion during the bout, as he hugged Makhachev, shook his hands, and dapped him several times before and after the bout.
For White, this was too much, and Muhammad agrees with the UFC big boss.
Belal Muhammad Criticizes Ian Machado Garry
Speaking on his YouTube channel, Muhammad criticized Machado Garry for embracing Makhachev several times during their UFC 330 welterweight title fight.
“What’s with this hugging? You’re down in the fifth round. You’ve got to have the killer instinct. You’ve got to for it. His face wasn’t beat up. It was an (Israel) Adesanya vs. (Kelvin) Gastelum war where you’re like, ‘Let’s do it.’ You were losing. Mindset-wise, he needs to flip the switch. His mindset was we didn’t get tapped, we got up from a couple of takedowns, those are wins for him, and he has to change that. Stock-wise, he’s going to learn from it. He’s going to get better from it, but this game is unforgiving,” Muhammad said (via MMAjunkie.com).
“You go against (Michael) Morales next. You get one-punched and get knocked out. That head kick that Islam landed on you in the second round, if it knocked you out, it changes everything else. You can’t waste an opportunity. You can’t waste a moment, and I felt like he definitely wasted moments there. The one sequence that I was like Islam has this fight – obviously when it came to the fifth round, and he took the back, I was like, ‘Oh, it’s over.’ When he had the body triangle in, I knew he wasn’t going to get out of that situation. For Islam, that was his checkmate moment.”
What’s Next for Belal Muhammad?
Muhammad is coming off three straight losses to Gabriel Bonfim, Machado Garry, and Jack Della Maddalena, so he’s in a tough spot in the future in a stacked weight class that has tons of challengers waiting for the next title shot against Makhachev.
Most likely, Muhammad is going to have to fight someone who is ranked near the bottom end of the top 15, or perhaps even an unranked fighter who is looking to break into the rankings. Although Muhammad is a former UFC champion who has been a great fighter for many years, he is clearly on the decline in his MMA career, and there are other contenders who are further up the title shot queue than he is at this point.
We’ll see what’s next for Muhammad, but perhaps he is angling for a UFC welterweight rematch against Machado Garry with these comments, as the two had a somewhat close fight when they met last year.
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