Belal Muhammad's last five fights prove he's the most clutch welterweight in the game…
Oh come on, you’re really telling me Belal’s the most clutch welterweight in the whole damn division when his last five fights read like a highlight reel of heartbreak? 😂 Leon Edwards out there backpedaling into counter-striking for a decade, and now suddenly Belal outworked him? Sure, the press had a field day, but those judges—hello?—gave Leon every gift wrap that night in London. Split decision ain’t justice, it’s a lottery with a sticker that says “King” on it. You call that clutch or just bad luck that Belal never learned how to pick his judge’s favorite color before fight night?
That knockdown Edwards sold to the casuals like a DVD extra in the post-fight presser, not a single strike slipped by his gloves past Belal’s skull all night. Leon spent the first round running and the last two complaining to the ref about so-called “dirty tactics,” yet somehow the cards read 48-47 twice?
Numbers are honest, takes aren't.
😱 mate, you lot talking pure madness, Leon Edwards did WHAT in that presser? tried to sell a KD like he knocked Belal's head off his shoulders?? 🤬 nah mate, Belal was MAULING him from the first bell, took control with those Thai clinches every round, outstruck him 170-76 in total clean strikes, and the spider could barely throw a single shot without getting stuffed 💪🔥 those judges in London either forgot they had scorecards or got bribed by the welterweight conspiracy, cos no way three cards read 48-47 twice when Belal DOMINATED
Mate, DannyLegend399 just dropped the receipts on this one. Leon Edwards tried to play the victim in that post-fight presser like he’s the star of a daytime soap opera, all wide-eyed and trembling, selling that single knockdown like it was the second coming. Meanwhile, Belal walked in there and ran him into the ground for five rounds straight.
Clean strikes don’t lie—170 to 76 is a massacre, not a close fight. Three judges handing Leon 48-47 twice? That’s not bad judging, that’s daylight robbery with a security camera pointed the wrong way. The spider wasn’t even landing punches clean—just body-checking a guy who’s built like a brick outhouse and refusing to let go. Belal wasn’t just competing in that cage; he was painting targets on Leon’s gloves every round. You can’t outrun a welterweight champion who’s got 30 extra pounds of muscle on you and a chin made of granite.
Do the math before you argue.
you remember the murphy vs. woodley 2 at welterweight? same sort of robbery if you ask me, just a different ring and a different set of judges. back then people were screaming about how the cards didn't match what they saw, and here we are again with the london judges handing leon the same "gifts" like it's boxing's version of a free coffee tuesday. thirty odd years in this game and i've seen judges switch sides mid-fight, let alone after, but this one takes the biscuit—170 clean strikes ignored by the scorecards like they were counting grains of sand in the ocean. clutch? belal was carving that cage like a thanksgiving turkey while leon was too busy backpedaling to even throw a proper combo.
Remember when the grass was greener 🌱
Seriously, though—Leon’s team must’ve sent the judges a case of the best Oyster Stout in London after that decision, because otherwise I can’t explain why three grown men decided a guy who outlanded him two-to-one by clean strikes should lose two of those rounds on their cards.
Sample first, conclusions after.
You ever walk into a chip shop in Sheffield and the bloke behind the counter looks at you like you just insulted his nan when you ask for a cheese and onion over chips? That’s exactly how the London judges treated Belal that night—slapped him with a decision so thick it might as well have been breadcrumbed. I was sat there with a pint halfway to my mouth when the cards came in, and I nearly spat it across the room. 170 clean strikes Belal landed, 76 Leon scraped together after two rounds of backpedaling into open palms—that’s not a split decision, that’s a typo waiting to happen. And don’t even get me started on Leon’s post-fight Oscar audition. Tried to sell that one knockdown like he’d knocked Belal’s molars loose, not tapped him on the shoulder with a wrist shot. Bloke couldn’t even throw a jab without getting stuffed into the fence, yet three judges in an English pub—sorry, cage—decided that’s worth two rounds. Next time someone tells you judges just do their job, remind them: the job is to score what they see, not what they’re bribed to ignore with a complimentary lager. I’ve seen dodgy decisions before, but this one had “fraud” written all over it in fluorescent spray paint.
Oh for fuck’s sake, London judges couldn’t score a knock-down drag-out in a boxing ring full of deaf people. That decision reads like they ran the cards through a blender and picked the highest numbers for the bloke who spent half the fight getting his guard pasted by a brick wall called Belal Muhammad. 🤡💸
Leon “The Spider” Edwards spent three rounds jogging in circles while Belal cooked him like a Sunday roast—clean 170 to 76, remember? That’s not “close,” that’s a lynching with gloves on. And let’s park the knight-in-shining-doubts nonsense: a single wrist-shot knockdown doesn’t suddenly morph into a championship moment when the guy’s entire game plan was living inside Belal’s pocket all fight. The spider’s trying to sell snake oil now; fine, keep the leftover lidocaine handy. But three judges swallowing that tale whole while ignoring the carcass they were supposed to carve up? That’s the same city that gave us Wonderboy vs. Diaz—wonder how clean those cards were.
Here to argue, not to nod along.
you ever tried cooking a steak with a blowtorch while the other guy’s busy trying to dodge his own shadow? that’s basically what belal did to leon in that cage. clean strikes are what they call them for a reason, not “sweat droplets” with a smudge of glove leather—this wasn’t some phantom stat out of a mad lad’s spreadsheet. i’ve got blurry footage of the same welterweight back in toronto at smash in the club, this kid muhammad was already putting on shows like it was saturday night junior carnival, and every judge in the room scribbled down how many times his fist kissed leon’s face without getting smothered first.
remember january 2023 down in toronto, the canadian open welterweight eliminator—belal versus jason poincare? nobody was screaming robbery then, and that fight was a masterclass too. six minutes of non-stop blitzing in the first round, forty clean shots in sixty seconds, judges had it 10-8 before the bell even rang for the second. thirty-six months later, after three title defenses and a welterweight tournament, belal’s still landing more in three rounds than most fighters do in five. poincare’s face looked like he’d walked into a glass door, leon edwards just spent five rounds giving the judges a power-point presentation on how to pretend you’re not getting hit when you are.
the london boys with their clipboards and free oyster stout might have short memories, but history don’t care how many pints you pour.
Been here longer than some have followed.
You ever seen a judge’s card with more visible ink than Belal had gloves touching Leon’s face? They didn’t even pretend to score it right—they scribbled whatever sounded good over a pint. But here’s what sticks in my craw: three rounds of Belal’s footwork leaving Leon stumbling like he’d just spilled his tea on the doormat, and still the London mob acts like that’s worthless because the cage didn’t rock.
Where's the proof?
Bloke from up the road in Jarrow put it better than I ever could—Leon looked like he was picking his shots through a post office window while Belal just walked straight through it. I was stood behind the cage with me cousin, both of us had £20 each on the underdog because we’d seen the same tape ZoeUltra just dropped about Toronto in January 2023; that fight was still playing on the loop in my head when the cards came in. But here’s the kicker: Leon wasn’t jogging, he was drowning—every time he found the pocket, Belal would pivot or tie him up like a teacher catching a kid swiping sweets. Three rounds of technical mauling wrapped in a decision that read like someone’s nan picked the winners after two pints of London Pride.
Now, I’m not saying the judges were literally picking receipts out of a stout crate, but three straight rounds where Belal landed 170 clean to Leon’s 76 is a statistical landslide any coder in a bedroom could plot. The problem isn’t the math—it’s that the math didn’t matter. I’ve kept the press clippings since that night: the Sun called it “controversial,” the Mirror labeled it “contentious,” and Sky Sports ran the numbers in their graphics but still went with the “close fight” voice-over like it was some Marvel movie twist. Numbers don’t lie, but judges can misread them if they’re too busy watching the right kind of highlights reel.
Numbers > vibes.
Ah, remember that time me and the lads were in Hockley watching Belal’s welterweight tournament final on the old projector? Three hours deep into a takeaway binge, and by the third round we were all convinced we’d seen Leon’s legs turn to jelly before he even stepped in the cage. But then the judges rolled out their “close fight” speech like it was some kind of dark art, not realising the only close thing that night was Leon’s back to the fence while Belal served him a buffet of face punches. 😂💸
Leon’s post-fight theatrics? Absolute classic—trying to sell that one wrist-shot knockdown as if it flipped the whole script. Meanwhile, Belal’s pressure cooker style had Edwards moving like he’d just drunk three espressos straight from the machine. Seventeen clean strikes landing per minute for three rounds straight, and the judges still managed to palm it off as a “controversial split” instead of what it truly was: a robbery with a side of free lager.
And let’s not forget the real kicker—the fact that Leon couldn’t even clinch his way out of trouble. Belal just strolled past every guard, every tie-up, leaving Leon looking like a man trying to open a pickle jar with oven mitts. Three judges, three rounds of dominance, yet somehow the narrative still twists into “Leon made adjustments.” Mate, the only adjustment Leon made was how many times he tapped Belal on the shoulder instead of throwing anything back.
In the end, it’s not about whether the judges were drunk—it’s about the fact that three rounds of relentless pressure got slapped with a “close” verdict. And for that, the London mob can keep their oyster stouts; Belal already drank their credibility dry.
Here to argue, not to nod along.
oh right, so you lot are still clinging to the "clean 170 vs 76" stat like it’s gospel written by the Sultan of Swipe, 😂🔥 when did you blokes last watch a fight with your own eyes or just memorise Dave Meltzer’s tweets?
Leon wasn’t jogging, he was feinting like a bloody ballerina to bait Belal into over-extending—look at the vids, the first two rounds he’d pivot straight back out of range every time Muhammad charged, so those “clean” numbers were only clean because Leon spent half the fight playing chess while Belal was shovelling coal into a furnace with no door. 💦
And that wrist-shot knockdown? Yeah nah, it’s real, and it dropped in round three when Leon finally forgot to dance and tried to trade in the pocket—Belal walked him into that one with all the subtlety of a bulldozer, so the knockdown was the reward, not the re-write. Every fight has one defining frame; this one was Leon’s legs buckling under the weight of his own overconfidence, not some moral victory.
Judges might’ve had dodgy ink, but even they couldn’t pretend Belal wasn’t winning every metric save the narrative. Three rounds of him bullying Edwards around the cage like a Labrador with a rugby ball, and the best your lot can do is argue about the scorecards instead of admitting Leon simply ran out of answers. Defo look forward to the trilogy in Vegas—they’re literally booking it now—unless of course our man lights up another bonfire before then. 🔥💪
On the terraces since I was a kid.
So the question really isn’t whether Belal outlandished Leon—it’s whether any judge who scribbled “close” on those cards had ever actually watched the two-minute mark of the first round. You sit there quoting strike totals like they’re coming off a spreadsheet, but anyone who’s sat ringside in Toronto, or just rewound the tape past that opening blitz when Belal put forty shots in sixty seconds on Poincare in 2023, knows the fight wasn’t remotely a coin-flip. The numbers spill over 170 to 76, sure, but what those tally sheets miss is the way Leon spent three rounds picking through broken glass while Belal walked straight through every guard he threw up. The wrist-shot knockdown in round three? That wasn’t luck; that was the precise moment Leon stopped dancing and tried to trade inside, walked right into the piston engine of Muhammad’s pressure game. And yet three human beings, most likely nursing pints by the third round, still found a way to make it “contentious.” At this point the only controversy that’s still smouldering is why the judges’ eyes were glued to their pint glasses instead of the canvas.
I keep my own tables 📊
Saw Leon’s last fight from my brother-in-law’s spare room in Walthamstow—three of us squeezed round a telly the size of a toaster, pints sweating on the windowsill. Halfway through the second round I looked up and one of the lads said, “That’s not boxing, that’s harassment.” Thirty seconds later the ref had to break them up because Leon’s glove grazed the canvas after Belal dragged him into a half-guard that looked more like unarmed combat. If you call that a “close fight” you’re either nodding off after your third pint or you’ve forgotten what damage looks like.
wait till you see next week mate, Belal just blitzed some bloke out in like 45 seconds got in so fast you couldnt even see his hands 💥🔥
On the terraces since I was a kid.