UFC 304 in Manchester brought about a change in British mixed martial arts that I don’t think the UFC quite intended to happen. On one hand, we have the welterweight champion who lost decisively to Belal Muhammed. And on the other, we have the interim heavyweight champion, Tom Aspinall. It’s a tricky situation for the UFC to navigate right now, as the legitimacy of the interim title is being called into question after UFC 304. As the reigning heavyweight champion, Jon Jones has not fought in over a year and is holding the division up. This creates a rather complicated situation for the UFC. From what we know, Jon is probably fighting sometime in November against Stipe, so that just means that if he fights in November, maybe about six months later, he’ll take another fight. So Tom has to wait an entire year after his fight at UFC 304 to get a shot at the heavyweight champion. All this does is hold the division up and keep us guessing who the true interim champion is. Sure, there’s a lot of talk that Jon Jones is undefeated and all of that, but at the end of the day he’s moving up a division where guys hit a lot harder and he’s only fought once, so it’s a little little disingenuous to say that he’s still the heavyweight champion. If anything, at this point, the UFC should strip Jon of the heavyweight championship and officially crown Tom Aspinall as the undisputed heavyweight champion of the UFC.
Edwards folds under Muhammad’s pressure at UFC 304
As far as the main event is concerned, Leon Edwards dropped a relatively boring decision to Belal Muhammed at UFC 304. With the limited skill set that he possesses, Muhammed came into the fight with vigour like no other. He seemed like he was possessed. The man is 36 years old and this is probably the last shot at his title and it showed in his performance. He gave it his all with the limited skill set that he has. He put on a game plan that shut down all of Leon Edwards’ offence and forced him to fight on the back foot. The fact that UFC 304 took place at 5:00 AM probably played a huge part in Leon Edwards’ lacklustre performance. Leon looked uncharacteristically slow. He looked a bit lethargic as well like the ground wasn’t really underneath him. But credit must be given where credit is due, and Belal Muhammed came in with a perfect game plan. He scouted Leon Edwards out on the feet and shot takedowns whenever he could. He confused Leon and took him down against the cage. Although he did very little damage, he managed to grind out control and win a unanimous decision on the judge’s cards. What’s next for Belal? Well, hopefully, he will fight new contenders like Shavkat Rakhmanov and Jack Della Maddalena. And maybe then we’ll see if his championship reign is all that it is.
We have to stop underestimating Paddy Pimblett
Further down the main card Paddy Pimblett had an amazing performance against Bobby Green, although it was more Bobby Green losing the fight than Paddy really winning. Why would you shoot a takedown on a guy who’s got a very good submission game? Bobby Green is very good on the feet but shot in on a takedown and got caught with a guillotine by Paddy who then beautifully transitioned into a triangle and rolled over to render Bobby Green unconscious in the first round. Pimblett is relatively abrasive with his trash talk, but you can’t deny the man’s skills. He’s got an incredible submission game. A way of finding finishes even when it looks unlikely. He’s only gone to decision twice in the UFC where most people think he lost against Jared Gordon and the other he dominated Tony Ferguson. He finally cracks the top 15 ranking in the UFC and now there’s no more matchmaking anymore. He’s got to fight the killers of the division. So we’ll see where Paddy Pimblett goes from here.
Moving on from UFC 304
Apart from the few finishes on the main card, the rest of the card under delivered. There are very few finishes in most fights and they all went to decision. This could have been because of the weird start time, but fighters are fighters and should have found a way around it. One could blame the UFC but the US PPV market is what it is. Well, at least we have Umar Nurmagomedov versus Cory Sandhagen next week, don’t we?
