Josh Thomson sees similarities in Belal Muhammad and Ronda Rousey after UFC 315.
Muhammad (24-4 MMA, 15-4 UFC) suffered severe facial damage when he lost his welterweight title to Jack Della Maddalena (18-2 MMA, 8-0 UFC) by unanimous decision in Saturday’s main event at Bell Centre in Montreal.
Although Muhammad said he would stand and trade with Della Maddalena, Thomson was surprised to see the former champion stray away from his strengths. He compared him to former UFC bantamweight champion and Olympic-bronze medalist judoka Rousey, who after going undefeated with six title defenses, was knocked out in back-to-back title fights against Holly Holm and Amanda Nunes before retiring.
“Belal did exactly what he said he was going to do – ill-advised, but he did it,” Thomson said of Muhammad on his “Weighing In” podcast. “I think he kind of realized the fight was slipping away a little bit, but he lost the fight. Is this one of those things where a coach got in your head and all of a sudden now you’re like Ronda Rousey?
“Like, they’re believing that you could beat Floyd Mayweather? I was like, please don’t tell me that’s what you’re doing. Was it because, like, ‘Look, I’m the champ now, I’ve reached my goal, and now I’m going to show the UFC I can be entertaining.’ Like, why?”
Muhammad did eventually try and mix things up against Della Maddalena, but not before standing and trading for a significant amount of time. He went three of nine takedowns in a Fight of the Night battle.
“I knew it was going to be a tougher fight than people were giving it credit to be,” Thomson said. “Everyone was like, ‘Oh, he’s going to take JDM down, he’s going to control it,’ they kept going back to the Gilbert Burns fight. Now he maybe could have done that. He just chose not to. I have no idea why.”
