Belal Muhammad provides update on UFC Vegas 21 eye damage
March 14, 2021
To say that the UFC Vegas 21 main event didn’t go the way that Belal Muhammad intended would be a massive understatement. He didn’t lose the fight, but it ended in a no contest and him making a trip to the hospital.
Though Leon Edwards took the fight to Muhammad in the first round, he withstood several hard shots and head kicks from the no. 3 ranked UFC welterweight. Not only that, but Muhammad answered with a few decent punches of his own.
But in the second round, just as things were starting to heat up, Edwards accidentally poked Muhammad in the eye.
UFC Vegas 21 results: Leon Edwards eye poke stops bout with Belal Muhammad
Leon Edwards was out of the fight game for almost two years, but was poised to earn a title shot at UFC Vegas 21 on Saturday night. The fight didn’t go anywhere near the way he hoped, and likely left his bid for a shot at welterweight champion Kamaru Usman unfulfilled.
Edwards and Muhammad were both throwing with intent straight out of the gate. It was Edwards that landed the first hard shots. But it was a couple head kicks midway through the round that rocked Muhammad, who was briefly on wobbly legs.
Editorial Commentary by Peter Parsons
Like two weeks ago, this week there was once again a lot of movement in the bottom half of the heavyweight rankings. Unlike two weeks ago, where the movement was a result of four heavyweight fights on the
Lewis vs. Blaydes card, this week’s movement was a result of the UFC releasing long-time ranked heavyweights Alistair Overeem and Junior Dos Santos.
With two heavyweights out of the UFC, we didn’t just see two heavyweights enter the rankings at 14 and 15. Instead we saw two fighters enter the heavyweight rankings at 13 and 15 with other fighters moving up or down.
After arguably the most bizarre title change in UFC history, newly crowned UFC bantamweight champion Aljamain Sterling gave his response to the MMA community on his podcast “The Weekly Scraps” following his DQ victory over Petr Yan at UFC 259.
While Yan clearly delivered an illegal knee to Sterling, who by definition was a grounded fighter, many MMA fans, commentators, and fighters criticized Sterling for embellishing his reaction to the knee.
Sterling addressed whether or not he felt like a true champion and also criticized Yan for his knowledge (or lack thereof) of the rules along with making the decision to knee him in that position altogether.