UFC Vegas 45 Fallout: Belal Muhammad vs Stephen Thompson, What's Next?

 I think this is the most surprising result from Saturday for me. I don't think I need to explain myself, but I will incase someone sees this who isn't a returning reader. I said in my preview for this fight that I think Belal Muhammad is a good fighter and I still believe that. I just thought Wonderboy Thompson was a really bad matchup for him. I think Belal's toughest matchups will come against specialists or someone who is a really high level fighter in one particular area. Belal is a sort of jack of all trades type of fighter. He's pretty solid at everything, but he's not an unstoppable force at anything, or at least we thought. The way I chose to interpret it is that Belal doesn't have the area of strength to really impose his will on someone. In reality, what happened, is that Belal not having a traditional "strength" means he doesn't have to find a way to game plan his style. He can simply analyze his opponent and attack his weaknesses because he likely has at least solid level skills in almost every area. I'm not going to get too much into it during the intro, but that was a great performance and a big moment for Belal and I feel great for him. Unfortunately, that means Stephen Thompson had to lose, but I'll get into that later as well.

I want to start with Belal because he really impressed me in this one. I said in my prediction that I didn't think Belal's wrestling would be good enough to consistently get Thompson down and keep him down. We know by now that I was very, very wrong in that assessment. I know we saw Thompson taken down and controlled by Gilbert Burns, but I thought his explosiveness was a key to that. Burns is such a strong and muscular athlete, combined with great power and speed, I thought that was a huge factor in Burns being able to control him. I didn't see Belal as that type of guy and honestly after the fight I was really left questioning myself. Belal doesn't get a ton of knockouts, so the power isn't there to that degree in his hands, but maybe I'm just missing something in Belal. He did look really vascular and strong in this fight though. I think Wonderboy losing the way he did to Burns before this actually takes away from what Belal did because it's not like no one has tried to do this to Thompson before. Everyone he's ever fought knows the path to victory is to wrestle him, but he's just never been taken down like this. Getting multiple minutes of top control over Thompson round after round is almost unheard of historically. If you're new to the sport, you may not realize that. Now, I'm not completely out of touch, I am a fan too after all. I know that wasn't the most fun fight to watch, especially on an entire card surrounded by finishes left and right, but of course that's not Belal's problem. He's paid partially based on whether he wins or not and especially when you get into the top 5, wins and losses are really all that matters. That's really where I want to go next with this. What a huge win for Belal. Given the way the welterweight division has been going the last few years, Belal has put himself in a position to be on the short list for a potential title fight. I'm assuming he'll take the 5 spot in the rankings and he could very well find himself in a number one contender's fight his next time out. I think that's probably the case and I would still be really surprised if Leon doesn't get the next chance at Usman. If that is the case, then who will that fight be against? I think the easy answer is Vicente Luque and that's probably the front runner at least now. Luque seems to be on the short list of guys who would provide Usman a fresh challenge and matching him up with Muhammad would all but guarantee a new opponent for Usman in his appearance following the assumed Leon Edwards fight. Obviously, Leon could win that fight and set up a trilogy, but I'm not going to get into every possible permutation of where these fights can lead. I think this would also be a pretty good matchup for Belal. Luque is a similar style fighter in that he relies on being well rounded more so than being dominant in any single area. That would be a really interesting matchup and I am talking myself into being excited to see how it would play out as I'm typing this. If not Luque, I think Gilbert Burns would make some sense as he's also looking for a way to get back into a potential title matchup. Because Burns' fight against Usman wasn't all that competitive, other than one isolated shot early in the first round, he probably has a lot more work to do to get that opportunity again that Colby Covington did. Masvidal got that second chance due to him taking the fight on like 5 days notice more than anything he showed during his first crack at the champion. Burns defeated Wonderboy in his last appearance and lining him up with Belal would be another nice step towards a rematch for him. I think this is probably a little worse of a matchup for Belal because Burns' BJJ would deter him from using his wrestling more than likely. On the feet, Belal is probably more consistent, but Burns has massive power that could equalize things. I think those are really the 2 main fights I'm looking at for Belal. Of course, he has a history with Leon Edwards and while that fight may come in time, I don't think they really line up here. If you make them fight for a number one contender's spot, you unnecessarily take away a fight from Usman. That either crushes Leon's crazy win streak or immediately destroys Belal's breakthrough, when that's not necessary. Belal has mentioned Khamzat Chimaev's name a couple times and I would be careful what I ask for if I were him. If he says his name one too many times, he may actually end up in that fight, which comes with limited upside. If he were able to actually defeat Chimaev, I think fans would think highly of it, as they should, but there's definitely a non negligible portion of the MMA population that would dismiss it as a win over only the 11th ranked welterweight or wherever Khamzat is in the rankings now (it is actually 11th). Belal Muhammad has put himself in a really good spot with what I think is the best performance of his career. I'm really looking forward to see who he gets next and what he can do with this opportunity.

On the other side of this, it's hard not to feel a little sad for Stephen Thompson. He's such a likable guy that it's really hard to not end up rooting for him every time he's out there. He's also a style that I personally find really interesting to watch because he's just doing things that no one else is doing. Wonderboy is a long time UFC veteran and at his age, it's hard to see him lose because you just wonder if he has enough time to make one last run at the title. He did just sign a long extension, so he has the contract length to do it, but this is the first time I've found myself wondering about how much he has left. The loss to Burns wasn't as eye opening for me because Burns was coming off a title fight and is someone we recognized as being one of the elites of the weight class. I'll speak for myself when I say that while I like and respect Belal Muhammad a great deal, that was a fight where I expected Thompson to come out with a win and he lost in dominant fashion. That's really what raised the concern or got me thinking. It's not that he lost, it's that he got dominated for virtually the entirety of the 15 minutes of the bout. Belal was getting into positions against Thompson that in years past, were virtually impossible to get to against that younger version of Wonderboy. Of course, there's no way to have this conversation without either sounding like I'm diminishing what Belal did or saying that Wonderboy should retire and that's not really what I'm trying to do. I'm only trying to understand what I saw because it came as such a surprise to me and judging by the betting lines, surprised most of the public too. There's really only two ways that can go: either Belal Muhammad is way better than we thought or Stephen Thompson isn't as good as we thought and if I had to guess it's probably somewhere in between. Given Thompson's age and perceived regression, it does raise some questions from my novice perspective. Of course, maybe could have just had a bad night or had a tough weight cut or any number of things we don't know about. Also, Belal Muhammad could have significantly improved from the last time we saw him and we won't truly know until we see the both of them fight again. I am interested to see what the UFC decides to do next with him. If they are committed to giving him someone coming off of a loss, Jorge Masvidal is sitting right next to him in the rankings. That doesn't immediately strike me as something that would be that interesting to Masvidal, especially with the Colby Covington fight looming, but the BMF vs the NMF could be an interesting selling point and stylistically that would be a great fight to watch. Thompson also has a win over Masvidal, so there is the potential revenge angle as well. More realistically are fights with Michael Chiesa, Li Jingliang, and Santiago Ponzinibbio. I don't know if I want to see Thompson fight a third grappler in a row, so maybe Chiesa is in third place out of those three, but I think they're all more than realistic, even though I'm not particularly excited about any of them either. Neil Magny is also right next to him in the rankings. While he's coming off a win, I think that's more so the type of fight I want to see Thompson in next. That seems like an accurate and appropriate test for Wonderboy based on what we've seen in his last two. There is the looming Khamzat Chimaev fight, but like I said, I'm out on seeing him against another grappler next time out. I would rule out Sean Brady for the same reasons. If the decision was up to me, I think I would have Neil Magny as my personal favorite to get that fight next (even though I also had him as the favorite to fight Khamzat next too). After that, I would say Jingliang and then Ponzinibbio in third for me. I really hope this isn't a sign of something greater for Wonderboy and would like to see him make one last run at the belt before he calls it a career.

What do you guys think? What is your opinion of the fight? Do you think Belal is a legitimate contender? Who do you want to see him fight next? What do you make of Wonderboy's performance? Who should he fight his next time out? Leave any and all thoughts in the comments and thanks for reading. Have a great day.