A major welterweight fight between Belal Muhammad and Shavkat Rakhmonov is in the works according to Dana White.
News of the potential fight came following UFC 286 this past weekend in London, with White appearing to rule out the possibility of either man fighting for the title next when he suggested that Leon Edwards would now go on to fight Colby Covington after ‘Rocky’ successfully defended the belt in his trilogy fight against Kamaru Usman.
Instead, White had other plans for the current No.4 ranked contender Muhammad.
“What’s next for Belal? Rakhmonov — we’re working on it,” White told reporters.
The 34-year-old Muhammad has been trying to force his way into the title picture for quite a while, and in the process has gone nine fights unbeaten, defeating the likes of Vicente Luque, Demian Maia, Stephen Thompson and Sean Brady along the way.
It is worth noting though that he did go up against the titleholder Edwards in the main event of a Fight Night card back in March of 2021 and he did seem to be coming off second-best in the first round there before receiving an accidental eyepoke early in the second round that he couldn’t recover from, leading to a no-contest ruling.
Now Muhammad will face another tough opponent in Rakhmonov, who is currently undefeated in his 17-0 MMA career, with five of those wins coming in the UFC so far, all by way of stoppage, including his latest submission finishes against Neil Magny and Geoff Neal.
At this stage the fight isn’t officially signed though and there’s no indication of when and where it will take place.
