⚡️🇵🇸Belal Muhammad told a story how he
started in MMA.I saw my high school teacher fighting in Strikeforce on Showtime. I
sent him a message, and it turned out the gym was near my mom’s
house. I linked up with him and started training. I just fell in
love with the sport…Advertisement
I… pic.twitter.com/xPu1vTvgkI
— Home of Fight (@Home_of_Fight)
August 31, 2024
Belal
Muhammad probably wouldn’t have ventured into mixed martial
arts if not for his high school wrestling coach.
Growing up in Chicago, Muhammad went to Bogan High School, where he
tried his hand at wrestling for two years. Muhammad then joined the
University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign to study law and had no
plans of dabbling in sports.
However, he was intrigued to see his high school wrestling coach
competing in MMA at Strikeforce,
which was acquired by the
UFC in 2011. Muhammad reached out to his teacher and found out
that the gym the teacher trained at was close to his mother’s
house. Muhammad started training with his teacher when he went home
over the weekends and fell in love with the sport in no time. And
once he got his hands raised in his first amateur fight, there was
no looking back.
“I was in high school, I wrestled for two years there. And then I
went to University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. I was going for
law. I wasn’t planning to do any sports,” he told WGNNews. “And
then I randomly came across him in a newspaper, my old high school
coach and he was fighting, he was fighting in Strikeforce on
Showtime. And I just sent him a message on Facebook and I was like,
‘You’re a fighter?’ And he was like, ‘Yeah I’m a fighter now, mixed
martial artist.’ And [his] was near my mom’s house. So whenever I’d
come home on the weekend I’ll go link up with him, train and it was
like snowball effect from there. I just fell in love with the
sport. Started training more, started training more. And after
getting my first amateur fight, once you win it, once you get your
hand raised, you start getting an addiction.”
While Muhammad’s parents insisted that he keep pursuing law, the
future UFC fighter kept postponing it until he lost. However,
Muhammad’s law career never came to fruition as he made his way
into the UFC, where he became the welterweight champion with a
unanimous decision win over Leon
Edwards at UFC 304
this past July.
“And I told my parents, ‘Until I lose, let me just keep doing
this,’” Muhammad said. “They were like, ‘Finish law school, go
there, be a lawyer, it’s way safer.’ And I was like, ‘We’ll do it
after I lose.’ And then we got the UFC and now we’re world
champion.”