Belal Muhammad’s performance against former champion Leon Edwards at UFC 304 wasn’t just dominant—it was shocking. ‘Rocky,’ who hadn’t tasted defeat since 2016, seemed untouchable heading into the bout. But Muhammad, known as ‘Remember the Name,’ had other plans, dismantling Edwards in a way that few thought possible. Yet, as Muhammad later revealed to Joe Rogan, his victory didn’t come without some mind games and mean tactics.

Facing a fighter as dangerous as Edwards, who had previously taken down some of the division’s best, Muhammad knew he couldn’t rely solely on skill. The key to beating ‘Rocky’? Disrupt his rhythm, get in his head, and make him uncomfortable. Edwards had mastered the art of distance management, but Muhammad wasn’t there to play nice. He went old-school, employing a psychological warfare approach to throw the former champ off his game.

During Leon Edwards’ undefeated run, he had dispatched notable welterweights, including former champions, which was enough to make Belal Muhammad aware of the dangers of taking on the English phenom. ‘Remember the Name’s main takeaway from the last two fights that Edwards had fought was the fact that ‘Rocky’ was pretty good at distance management. That prompted Muhammad to use the age-old menacing game plan of getting inside the champion’s head.

“When we saw him against Colby and him against Usman… we saw that he’s [an] expert at distance… So we’re like, ‘Bro, we got to make this the dirtiest fight, the hardest fight for him. So, we got to step right away,'” Belal Muhammad stated on the JRE podcast. As such, the newly crowned champion kept trying to keep Leon Edwards on the back foot and make him uncomfortable.

“Even when the ref was looking at me, telling me to back up, when he looked at Leon and say, ‘You ready, you ready’, I’m walking forward right away. So, I’m right in his face before he even looks up,” Belal Muhammad added. However, Leon Edwards’ coach, Dave Lovell, claims that the loss could be blamed, not on ‘Rocky’s opponent’s tactics, but on an injury that he had suffered heading into the fight.

Leon Edwards’ coach claims his back injury derailed his momentum against Belal Muhammad

The only thing that fans, MMA pundits, and reporters wanted to know after UFC 304 was where Leon Edwards went wrong. While it may sound like an excuse for what Dave Lovell had to say, he claims that there were already some problems in Edwards’ camp before the fight. During the training sessions, the former champion had to deal with back problems, claiming that he was not a hundred percent going into that fight against Belal Muhammad.

“I’m not making any kind of excuses for him, but we had a few niggles in camp. His back was niggling him, so he couldn’t wrestle the way he really needed to offensively and defensively because of the niggle that recurred about maybe two, three times,” Leon Edwards’ coach told ‘Submission Radio’. Nevertheless, Dave Lovell did not take anything away from Belal Muhammad, who made history by becoming the first Palestinian UFC champion.

Dave Lovell has guaranteed that Leon Edwards will be back in full swing soon, but as for Belal Muhammad, he might be getting his title challenger by the end of this year, with rumors about a potential No.1 contender’s fight surfacing on social media. It’ll be interesting to see if there will be a rematch between the UFC 304 headliners or if it’s a one-and-done fight.