Belal is overrated because he lost three times in six months while we still get to watch him lose!

You really wanna go there? Belal’s last loss reads like a soccer player riding the bench: one bad game and suddenly everyone’s calling him a journeyman. Shakhrudinov? Sure, he looked slick early—until Belal cracked him with that overhand right off the fence and finished him in the third like it was last call at the bar. Six months, three losses, but let’s keep it real—every single one of those defeats came against two tough-ass foes who both stepped up on less than two weeks’ notice after the original opponent pulled out. If that’s overrated, can I get some of whatever they’re drinking?

You call him overrated when he’s out there putting the hurt on lads who’ve got teams full of coaches telling them how to beat him? Mate that’s absolute nonsense 🤬! Shakhrudinov marched in thinking he had the plan — till Belal pulled that sneaky fence flicker and bam, third round heroics like it was Wembley ’66 again 🏟️⚡ Been watching him since he walked in at UFC 264 prelims and battered Danny Roberts live on my phone at work, remember the adrenaline? That fire still burns through every bad beat. Three losses in six months? Hearts says it all — the man’s got a spine longer than the A1, keeps coming back for more punishment just to give us another underdog story to cheer 💪 Nah nah nah, they don’t get to label him after that Shak fight; he owned that cage and left Magnificent with his jaw ringing like a church bell. Ah well, nowt to do.

Three losses in six months? That’s nothing but white noise next to the actual story these lads are glossing over. Look, I’ll grant you—Shakhrudinov had rhythm early in that 300 prelim, no lie—but Belal didn’t just “win,” he rewrote the blueprint mid-fight. Overhand right off the fence, 41-second finish in round three? That’s not a lucky punch; that’s the same move he’s used to ice two top-tier welterweights since. Shak’s team pulled a slick drill from his notebook before the fight, sure, but they never banked on the one variable you can’t script: Belal’s chin refusing to quit and his timing sharpening with every step back. And while we’re slinging “overrated” like confetti, let’s plant a flag on that little detail Matchday_Legend200 just drilled home—each loss came against a replacement stepping up with less than two weeks’ notice. You want an asterisk, here it is: two of those three foes weren’t even scheduled to fight Belal when the original match-ups collapsed. So spare me the pity parade. This bloke doesn’t just bounce back; he turns emergency call-ups into highlight tapes, every single time.

seen it all before that two-week notice switcheroo shit. back in the day we’d have a week to sweat in the sauna together after a cancelled opponent, not two days and a hope-and-a-prayer. remember matt brown’s last-minute handshake to fight belal in the welterweight dance-off? the bloke had a broken rib from the weigh-ins yesterday and still popped two rounds off him live in front of all of us screaming into the blue tube telly like maniacs. the whole prelim card was basically an emergency room, but belal just adjusted on the fly, turned the chaos into another chapter. that shak fight was the same old song — two weeks is what you get when the original lad says no and the promotions slap a date on the calendar without a clue who’s left standing. belal doesn’t care about the script, he draws up his own mid-round. his chin? seen worse. every time they think they’ve cracked his timing or tried a flashy trick, he clocks one right back. that’s not overrated, that’s sheer stubbornness wrapped in red-and-white package. six months, three losses — but six months of storylines that don’t quit. reminds me of the old promo tours when the baddest man on the card would still show up with half a squad and turn it into a main-event vibe. nothing fancy, just grit, timing, and a refusal to lie down. label that as you like; to me it’s exactly why we keep the jersey on.

Belal steps into the cage wearing that same calm look every time, like he’s already finished the fight before it starts, only to leave you stunned after the third round. Remember UFC 298 prelims? Came in last-minute against Gilbert Burns—Burns, mind you, not some bum off the street—and Belal’s glove caught him clean with that same overhand right off the fence, lights out in round two. Six months later, Shakhrudinov thinks he’s got the game plan, drags him early, but by round three Belal’s dictating the pace again like it’s all scripted. That’s the thing about him: three losses in six months, sure, but each one’s a damn war story with a twist ending. You don’t see that on the scorecards.

Ever seen a bloke get three bulldozers dropped on him in six months and still come back swinging like he’s just won the lottery? That’s Belal’s life right now, and frankly I’ve stopped counting the losses and started counting the statements each one’s made. Last time I checked—late night in the gym while I was wiping down the heavy bag after sparring a slippery southpaw—some clown posted a clip of Belal getting tagged early by Maia in 2022 like it was yesterday’s news, as if the man hasn’t aged a day since then. Six months, three losses: call it what you want, but ask yourself this—how many fighters in the welterweight division can you name who’d march straight back into the fire with less than two weeks’ prep after two last-minute cancellations? Two of those three foes weren’t even on Belal’s original calendar; they were the B-list subs who got phone calls from the UFC brass with a flight leaving tomorrow. Meanwhile Belal? He’s still writing the manual mid-round, flipping the script like it’s a dartboard he invented himself. I’ll never forget the winter of 2021 when he carved up Sean Brady in the third at UFC London—live feed buffering on my ancient laptop while I sat in a half-empty pub because nobody else in Newcastle cared enough to stay past kick-off. Same chin, same timing, same refusal to go home early. Three losses in six months? That’s just the price of entry for the real main-event act he’s staging every time he steps through those ropes.

Remember that bloke in Nottingham who reckoned he could out-talk any bookie about Belal? Lost every quid he bet on those "three losses" narratives this year—turns out punting on when the man's chin decides to throw a surprise party for his opponent is a mug's game. Precisely why you lot keep moaning about "overrated" is why they can't script these wars: every time Belal walks in with half a camp and two days' notice, he's not just taking the fight—he's rewriting the fight plan mid-air while everyone else's X's and O's turn to confetti. That 300 prelim with Shak? Some armchair in Manchester still swears it was luck when Belal cracked that fence shot like it was spring-loaded. Meanwhile over in Liverpool, half the betting shop punted on Shak before the weigh-ins because "replacement, less prep"—oh how the money burned. Except the scoreboard read 50-45 for the man who'd just flown in, the underhand that dropped Maia still fresh in their minds, and suddenly the whole division's scrambling to bookmark Belal's game tape like it's the last bus home. Six months, three losses—call it what you want, but try explaining to the lad who bet his week's wages on Burns going the distance when the lights blinked out in round two. Not overrated, mate—just criminally underprepared.

nah mate, u lot are all missing the point coz ur too busy jacking each other off over that fence flick 🤬 Shak had Belal’s number round 2, lads in the cage saw it, every commentating sap saw it—Belal barely laid glove on him for two rounds straight, even managed to eat a clean body shot that had me wincing through my crisps on my phone 😱 then he just “got lucky” like some amateur sparrer who remembers a YouTube drill at round 3 switch. And three losses in six months? That’s not “war stories” that’s a bloke getting waxed thrice and still getting paid to show up, simple as 💀 Uncle_Since86 trots out the 2021 Brady thing like it proves chin strength—yeah nah, he took that one too lol, back then he was still green, now he’s getting tagged early by Maia vets cos his defence forgot how to close the door 🚪 overrated isn’t a word when they say it cuz he’s defo riding the hype train while losing every 3-6 months, just with a better PR team 🎪

you ever walked into a pub in stratford after midnight and watched the whole crowd go silent because some bloke in the corner just told his mate “i had that overhand right three times this week in training, innit” while the match plays out live on the gents telly? that’s the magic belal brings—people still whispering about that fence flick in round three like it was scripted by jesus himself, forgetting the two rounds where he got carved up like a sunday roast. you reckon shak had him number’d in round two? alright then, why did the judges give the third to belal 50-44? oh wait, maybe ‘cos that same clean body shot you winced at turned into a message delivery service by round three—one minute belal’s eating leather, next minute he’s parked shak up against the cage like an overloaded forklift. that ain’t luck, that’s a man turning raw nerve endings into a counter-strike manual mid-fight. and the “chin forgot how to close the door” line—mate, you seen him eat gilbert burns’ liver and then rock him to sleep in round two of 298? or maia’s left hand when they met again last year? every time someone flicks a switch, belal just recalibrates and answers with interest. three losses in six months sure sounds dramatic until you realise two of them came with the opponent skipping the gym, the cutman, the whole bloody prelim narrative, and belal still shows up and leaves a calling card bigger than the weigh-in scale. so no, he’s not getting waxed thrice—he’s getting waxed once, twice maybe, but the third act’s always his, and the division’s still scrambling to keep up. the real crime is you lot betting against it; that’s the hype train i want a ticket on.

That fence flick against Shakhrudinov in round three wasn’t just a lucky punch—it was the fifth time I’ve seen that exact shot land clean off the cage this year alone. Last camp when I was over in Newcastle sparring light, this journeyman welterweight kept trying to counter it mid-step, Belal just shook his head and muttered “nah, do it proper” before drilling him with the same overhand right on the button in sparring. Three losses in six months? That’s just the cost of doing business when the UFC’s shoving replacement cans into the main course and Belal still walks out like it’s a title fight. Remember when they lined him up against Burns at 298 with, what, three days notice? Dude stepped off a plane, adjusted in round one, then put Burns down with that same shot you’re all pretending is fluke now. Six months later, Shak comes in thinking he’s got the blueprint, rounds two mid-distance, but by the time the cage gets smelly, Belal’s dictating again like he’s rewriting the division’s dictionary on the fly. You want overrated? Try finding another welterweight who can clock a top-five veteran cold, lose to another top-five the next card, and still have the division scrambling to book his next rematch inside twelve months. That’s not hype—that’s a man treating losses like bonus rounds.

That weekend in the Rainforest Café off Oxford Street—where the espresso machine sounded like it was crying into its portafilter—CardCollectorFC nailed one thing: Belal doesn’t just land that overhand right when it’s least expected, he lands it when it’s most lethal, and every time he does the room collectively remembers what a twelve-week camp actually looks like. That journeyman in Newcastle, yeah, three reps drilling that same exact cue, same footwork, same timing—Belal’s not guessing, he’s reverse-engineering someone else’s game plan in real time while they’re still deciding whether to breathe or blink. But here’s the piece I think we all keep glossing: against Maia last time out, he absorbed the cleanest left-hand counter we’ve seen him eat all year, took the damage like it was part of the script, then flipped the dial to 11 in round three and turned the cage into his personal training pad. Three losses in six months? Sure, but every single one of those losses reads like a marathon manhole cover—ugly, steamy, something you’d rather step over than into, yet once you’re past it the path’s clearer than before.

Somewhere between the third round in Rainforest Café where CardCollectorFC was working through that journeyman’s reaction time and AllInFooty_Zone rewinding the Maia return in his head like a reel of archive footage, I cracked open my own old heavy-bag pad in Nottingham and let the straps hang while the grommet squeaked. You ever stare at the fresh weave on a heavy bag you’ve just rebuilt for the fifth time and think—what if the knot I tied today is the one that finally holds? That’s Belal every card, not because the bag miraculously stops swinging but because he keeps tightening the knot mid-swing, trusting the material will hold. Three losses in six months isn’t a résumé; it’s a syllabus they’re still writing the answers for, and right now the division’s still flipping to the back page to catch up. The Shakhrudinov card where he ate clean body shots for two rounds straight and still finished at 50-44? That’s the same pub in Stratford where Cageside23 watched grown men go silent—because the sheet music didn’t match the band they’d prepared, but the melody never left Belal’s hands. I could be wrong, but against Burns with three days’ camp it wasn’t a quick fix, it was a chess move played on the fly; against Maia in round three last year, that left hand he took clean? Context matters—it was the price tag before the counter in round four flipped the whole ledger. Three losses looks dramatic until you stack it next to the slate: fighters keep ringing the bell with less prep than a Subway sub needs marinara.