Leon Edwards vs. Belal Muhammad Ends In No Contest Via Eye Poke At UFC Vegas 21

We have a very exciting 13-fight card going underway tonight at UFC Vegas 21, as Leon Edwards makes his long awaited return to the octagon opposite No. 13 ranked Belal Muhammad in the five-round main event of the evening.

Edwards hasn’t fought since July of 2019, where he secured a five-round unanimous decision victory over former UFC lightweight champion Rafael dos Anjos. That’s the same amount of time Muhammad has been able to go 3-0 in.

Those three victories came over the likes of Takashi Sato (rear naked choke), former Bellator welterweight champion Lyman Good (UD), and fellow former Titan FC welterweight champion Dhiego Lima (UD) just last month.

Edwards remained at No. 3 in the welterweight division through all this time off, where the UFC put him after defeating dos Anjos. Both men also came into this fight with an impressive record of 18-3, looking to improve that to 19-3.

Continue reading to see how this welterweight main event went down:

Official Result: Leon Edwards vs. Belal Muhammad Results In No Contest At :18 of round two

Round 1

Edwards is showing no signs of ring rust early on, which is great to see. He takes the center and lands a nice jab-cross before tying up, attempting to take Muhammad down.

Muhammad works his way out and attempts to regain the center of the octagon.

Edwards lands a vicious left head kick midway through the round and had Muhammad hurt badly. He lands a few nice punches immediately afterward before tying up with him again, to our surprise.

Muhammad survives, but Edwards ends round one looking as sharp as he ever has.

Round 2

Not long into round two and Edwards lands the second eye poke of the fight, but this one was much worse than the one landed in the first. It was so bad in fact, the fight was stopped because of it, resulting in our second no contest of the night.

It appears the two of these men will keep their identical records until a later date.

Brady Ordway

I became a fan of combat sports when I was 12 years old. I was scrolling through the channels and landed upon Versus, where WEC was televised. Urijah Faber fought Jens Pulver for the second time that night. That's the first fight I ever saw, and I was immediately hooked. So eventually, I began covering the sport in the fourth quarter of 2018, and have since started writing about animals as well. If you'd like to see those pieces, be sure to check out learnaboutnature.com!

See Full Bio