A look at what could happen and what really did…
Belal Muhammad sits alone on a desert island. Waves lap at the shore as he scans the horizon for any sign of rescue. Far in the distance he makes out the shape of a small boat. Perhaps it’s a lifeboat, part of a larger ship that will ferry him back to civilization! As the craft closes in he sees that it’s a dinghy being rowed by Gabriel Bonfim. “Ahoy there Mo! There’s a place for us not far from here. It’s sparsely populated but you won’t be alone anymore. A little island called the Meta Apex.” Belal sighs with the realization that he’s been castaway by the UFC for good.
If the UFC Freedom 250 White House event is the shit we’ve all been waiting for then UFC Fight Night: Muhammad vs Bonfim is the Shart Before the Storm. There is some nourishment amidst the chum, so let’s get down to business.
Belal Muhammad was never the UFC’s guy, a low key wrestler with a penchant for good game planning and decision wins. Over time that strategy made his title shot undeniable, and he snatched the belt from Leon Edwards with a gritty, workman-like performance. Neither the fans nor the promotion ever fell in love with Mohammad but there was enough goodwill leftover from his exciting but unsuccessful title defense to Jack Della Maddalena to book him against Ian Garry in his next fight. The Dubliner scored a signature decision win of his own that effectively cast Muhammad out to sea where we find him now: caught between a new role as either gatekeeper or stepping stone. It’s unlikely the UFC will ever let the 37 year old Muhammad near the title again, so the result of this fight may represent a fork in the road of his career.
Gabriel Bonfim, at the elite level, is an unknown quantity. His UFC wins have all come against opponents with hard ceilings to their upper bound limits whether due to fight IQ or age. Nevertheless, Bonfim has worked his way into the #11 spot in the UFC rankings and this is his moment to leapfrog much bigger names like Kamaru Usman, Leon Edwards, and Jack Della Maddalena into the spotlight. The welterweight division has a new generation of contenders emerging. Ian Garry, Michael Morales, Carlost Prates, and Sean Brady are all circling the number one contender spot. With a win against Muhammad, Bonfim has a chance to grab one of those names in need of a “keep busy” fight.
The one danger looming over this fight was if both men played it safe. When a grappler (Bonfim) squares off with a wrestler (Muhammad), you run the risk of a mid-level, low-output kickboxing fight ending in a close decision. That is the kind of result that kills momentum for even the winner.
The Results
Instead, Gabriel Bonfim did exactly what he needed to do against Belal Muhammad. Over the course of five rounds the big athletic Brazilian pulled further and further ahead of the former champion, bloodying him up in the process. A steady stream of leg kicks by Bonfim did the job in limiting Muhammad’s movement. Muhammad has never been an explosive athlete. When he started off the third round shooting for a takedown, that was Bonfim’s do-or-die moment. There were lots of high fives and smiles throughout the remainder of the fight by Bonfim, no doubt as he began to realize that victory was within his grasp.
Perhaps Bonfim’s smile betrayed a more honest self-assessment. Fighters are notoriously delusional. A level of delusion is necessary to confidently step into a cage versus another trained fighter for paltry pay. I suspect that in many (definitely not all) fighters there’s a tiny voice in the back of their heads or in the small hours of the night that whispers “what if I’m not good enough?” There have been moments in MMA where the shock of victory provokes a new dimension of a fighter’s personality to reveal itself. Two examples I can think of off the top of my head are Stipe Miocic’s exuberant celebration after winning his first heavyweight title, shouting I’M A WORLD CHAMP! over and over to no one in particular while flipping over the cage. Another mid-fight transformation came during Leon Edwards’ third fight versus Kamaru Usman. In pure body language you can see Edwards become a more confident fighter and practically swagger across the cage for each engagement with a flagging Usman.
As Gabriel Bonfim clearly pulled ahead of Belal Muhammad in the last two rounds it’s possible that he too started to undergo a similar transformation. Gabriel Bonfim just beat the former welterweight champion. Decisively. I am now interested to see how Bonfim approaches this next phase of his career. The man has arrived.
Also on the card was Brendan Allen vs Edmen Shahbazyan. Neither man has a title fight in his future, but they both can put on exciting performances given the right opponent. I really enjoyed Allen’s fight with Chris Curtis, though that was two years ago. I hoped that Allen would test Shahbazyan’s grappling, which has long been his weakness (ironic given that he’s a former training partner of Ronda Rousey). However the end result was a bit more dire for Shahbazyan. Brendan Allen chose to stand and bang, which should have given Shahbazyan enough time and space to enact his striking. While both men fought tooth and nail through three rounds, hard enough to win a Fight Of The Night bonus, it was Allen who stood victorious via a hard-won decision.
In a way, both men fought exactly to their ranking-implied level. Allen is a gatekeeper to the elite levels of the welterweight division while Shahbazyan is an exciting banger who lacks the depth to enter title contention.
Thanks for checking out my new column, and let me introduce myself.
My name is Chris Rini and I’ve been an MMA media member since 2013. I started my career by making wood engravings of classic fights and got noticed after posting an animation of Anderson Silva vs Forrest Griffin to the r/mma subreddit. That brief moment of notoriety landed me an interview with Fightland, a now-defunct MMA site operated by Vice Media and secretly funded by the UFC itself.
After leaving Vice Media I worked both independently and then for Bloody Elbow until it was sold in March 2024 and found myself without a website to call my own. I stopped working in MMA and my interest in the sport waned as the UFC became more of a PR wing for the Trump administration. In 2026 as the Paramount era began, curiosity got the better of me and I started watching fights again. Then the opportunity to work with Cage Classics arose, and here we are. I’d like to hear your thoughts and questions about the state of MMA, which fights you’re looking forward to, and any other curiosities that cross your mind. You can find me on Twitter @RiniMMA.