Belal Muhammad has no regrets about agreeing to face Ben Askren in a wrestling match at RAF, and the former UFC welterweight champion made that clear during a recent conversation in Wisconsin.
The bout is scheduled as the co-main event of RAF on Saturday night, a matchup that has drawn significant attention given Askren’s ongoing recovery from a serious medical situation. When asked whether he had any hesitation about taking it, Muhammad was straightforward.
“I’d rather be that guy,” Muhammad said. “If you want to compete, Ben wants to compete, I want to be the guy who’s, all right, I’ll oblige you. I’m not going to be the guy who’s like, no, don’t let him compete. He’s showing the world what’s possible.”
To illustrate his thinking, Muhammad shared a story from a sparring session where a training partner got dropped but refused to stop. Muhammad stepped in to spar with him, throwing only body sh0ts to protect him, until a coach yelled at him to go to the head.
The point, Muhammad explained, was simple: he wants to be the guy who shows up for someone who wants to compete, not the one who shuts them down.
His personal history also shaped his perspective. About a year and a half ago, Muhammad battled a staph infection severe enough that doctors came close to amputating his foot. He spent six to eight weeks in a hospital bed with IV antibiotics and genuinely feared his career was over.
“I literally thought I was going to di3. We were close to getting my foot amputated, not being able to train and wrestle anymore or compete anymore in MMA,” he said. “It made me miss the sport so much.”
That experience gave Muhammad a window into what Askren is navigating.
“He loves wrestling. He’s bread and blood, the wrestling life,” Muhammad said. “I understand why he wants to do it. No matter what the world’s telling him, no matter why everybody’s saying that you can’t do it, it’s not possible, he doesn’t care about the win or losing. He just wants to be on the mat, and I understand that feeling.”
Muhammad also acknowledged a personal motivation for accepting the match. He has been on a losing streak inside the UFC, and getting his hand raised in any competitive setting carries real weight right now.
“I just got to remember how it is to win, man,” he said. “Sometimes you just need to, all right, reset. Let’s get a win outside of it just to get your hand raised again.”
“Competition in front of the lights, people watching, big stage, that’s a different feeling. Just to get that hand raised there, it’ll make me like, all right, this is what it feels like to win again. Let’s go.”
Muhammad confirmed he plans to return to the UFC before the end of the year. For now, Saturday night comes first.
