After Twitter callouts searching for a Leon Edwards matchup and the tease of a matchup, Belal Muhammad and Stephen Thompson get a December 18th date for a top ten matchup for the UFC welterweight division according to MMA Junkie.
No elevators to the top I’ll take the stairs pic.twitter.com/Q1z5nM3nmf
— Belal Muhammad (@bullyb170) November 11, 2021
Stephen Thompson and Belal Muhammad Get December Matchup
Stephen Thompson will be looking for a rebound and back to his winning ways from his last fight which was a decision loss to Gilbert Burns. His previous two fights were wins against Geoff Neal and Vicente Luque which have matured into very good wins and Burns isn’t a bad loss so a win here could get Thompson right back into the thick of it.
For Belal Muhammad though, he is riding a six-fight unbeaten streak with wins over guys like Damian Maia and Dhiego Lima but ironically his last two losses have been to Neal and Luque. Muhammad campaigned for a rematch with Leon Edwards yesterday after his fight fell apart but alas it seems the UFC would rather grace us with this matchup.
Both men have fun styles, prefer to stand and go at it, and it also gives a clearer picture to the rest of the welterweight division. It gives Khamzat Chimaev a clear path to Neil Magny which would be a fun grappling matchup and then allows for Leon Edwards to fight one of the top guys without a matchup such as Gilbert Burns or Vicente Luque.
The card on December 18th will be headlined by a heavyweight matchup of Derrick Lewis and Chris Daukaus which makes this one hell of a co-main event.
As for the puzzle that is the welterweight division, it seems to be coming together. Despite all the talk by Kamaru Usman flirting with so many things outside the division, he will soon have a long line of contenders once the dust settles on these matchups.
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