It isn't normal that I don't talk about this weekends card until the Friday post, but this is one of those situations. This weekends UFC event lacks the name value outside of few fighters beyond the main event, but I still think it should be a decent card. While none of the prelims or basically any fight beyond Luque vs Muhammad will have any major impact on a division, the fights should still be relatively competitive. In my opinion, a good fight is when both competitors are at the same relative level of ability. Of course, it is a lot more fun when the opponents are ranked or are fighting in a title eliminator or something like that, but that doesn't mean we can't get good, solid, fun competition outside of the rankings. I think this card will have a decent bit of that. Honestly, the Bellator card on Friday (the day this comes out, but I'm typing on Thursday) should be just as good. AJ McKee vs Patricio Pitbull was as excited as I had ever been for a Bellator card when it happened the first time and now we're getting part two. Former UFC veteran Corey Anderson will be in the co-main as well, so I'm looking forward to it quite a bit. Unfortunately for Bellator, their cards just don't have the depth most of the time and the UFC brand is just too big for them to overcome that gap any time soon. I think more casual fans like to be able to gamble on the fights, even if they don't really know the athletes and Bellator prelims are not conducive to that either. So many of the prelims have the favorites at -700 or better, so sometimes the prelims feel a little stale. Anyways, the main event of UFC Vegas 51 will be a rematch 6 years in the making. Top 6 ranked welterweights are fighting in a title eliminator and that is honestly enough for me to be interested.
The blue corner will feature Belal Muhammad, who is making his first appearance of 2021. Belal is coming off the biggest win of his career when he upset Stephen Thompson on the last card of 2021 in December. He's also on the best run of his UFC career as he is undefeated in his last 7, with 6 of those being wins and 1 no contest after he was unable to continue due to an eye poke from Leon Edwards. Those 6 wins came against Curtis Millender, Takashi Sato, Lyman Good, Dhiego Lima, Demian Maia, and Stephen Thompson. His last loss came to Geoff Neal back in 2019. Despite where he is now, Muhammad has actually lost 2 of his first 3 fights in the UFC. He lost his debut to Alan Jouban in 2016 in a bout that won fight of the night and his third fight in the UFC to Vicente Luque in what still stands as the only time in his career that he's been finished. In that fight, Luque was able to drop Belal with a stiff right hand and follow him to the ground to get the TKO victory just 1:19 into the first round. This fight was so long ago and both men are so different, that I honestly don't much stock into that result. I think it is noteworthy though that Luque was able to stun Belal so quickly with his power when no one else had been able to do it before and no one has really been able to do it since, at least not to that extent. In terms of his style, Belal is one of those guys who really gives me trouble when I make my picks every Saturday. To borrow a phrase, he is a jack of all trades, but a master of none and it really gives me trouble. Belal isn't one of those guys who comes out with an established game plan and imposes his will on you. He is so well rounded that he is more likely to attack whatever his opponent's weakness is than to decide to just do what he wants. Because he is so well rounded, he is much more capable of making in fight adjustments as well. Most fighters have their skillset with their strengths and are hesitant to or unable to diverge from that initial plan. Belal isn't limited because he is equally capable of striking or grappling his opponent, depending on what the matchup calls for. If I had to define him, I would say that Belal is a little more natural of a grappler than a striker. When grappling, Belal is much more of a position grappler over a submission expert. If you watch his fight against Wonderboy Thompson, I think that is the style Belal would prefer to fight if he had his choice and he's very good at it. He isn't particularly efficient at hitting his takedowns, but he is persistent. He only completes 33% of his takedowns, but is still able to average over 2 per 15 minutes. This is mostly a testament to Belal's heart and his cardio. He is one of those guys who has what I call weird cardio from time to time on here. He's not the only one who has it, but he's probably the most high profile. What I mean by this is that he appears to look tired after the first round, but his output and rate of activity never actually slows down. I'm not sure how or why, but for whatever reason, his body language suggests he is more tired than he actually is. In any case, Belal's cardio is one of his best weapons. He strikes and wrestles at a pace that could tire lesser opponents pretty quickly. His striking isn't the cleanest, but he is more than proficient and uses a more volume based approach on the feet. I think if there was a weakness for Belal, it is that, at this stage of the rankings, he isn't a standout athlete. He lacks elite level explosiveness, which relegates him to volume striking. He just doesn't have the power in his strikes to finish fights with any degree of regularity. He really isn't much of a finisher in general. His last win inside the distance was against Takashi Sato in 2019 by submission. Before that, he hadn't finished a fight since 2016. Now, he's done a great job in winning decisions, but it is just a more limited way of winning. Having to go the distance every time is inherently more risky as there is more time to potentially get finished yourself. I think the other weakness in Belal's game is the lack of a truly dominant or go to skill. As I've been saying, he's so well rounded that he looks to take advantage of his opponents weakness a lot of times. However, if the going gets tough or if the fight is close, he doesn't have one thing to rely on that can win him a round in a close fight. Belal is a true mixed martial artist. By this I mean that he is truly at his best when he is mixing all of the arts. I don't think he is high enough level at any of them individually to really take over a fight. That isn't a weakness in a normal sense of the term, but I think once you get into these top 5 matchups, it helps so much to have something to fall back on that you can do at an elite level and I don't think Belal has that. Having to fight Belal Muhammad is most certainly not my idea of a good time. He's so well rounded and in such good shape that it basically guarantees a fight that is going to push his opponents to the limit. He doesn't get finished either, so his opponents need to be prepared for a long night.
Vicente Luque is looking to finally break through in a big way. He's had way more success than failure in his UFC career, but he's always seemed to slip up right before he could get into the truly elite of the division. He lost his UFC debut and then won 4 in a row before losing to Leon Edwards. Then he won 6 in a row before losing to Stephen Thompson. That was in 2019 and he's won 4 since. He's racked up some really nice wins over his time in the UFC as well. He's defeated the likes of Niko Price (twice), Jalin Turner, Bryan Barberena, Mike Perry, Randy Brown, Tyron Woodley, and Michael Chiesa. Of course, he has the win over Belal Muhammad in their first fight as well. After the Chiesa win, Luque was on the verge of a title shot, but then he missed weight while appearing as the backup fighter for one of Usman's title defenses. It wasn't the second Covington fight, so it was either the second Masvidal fight or the Gilbert Burns fight. I want to say it was Burns, but I'm not 100%, but I guess it doesn't matter too much. Luque had a lot of momentum before then, but the weight miss really took a lot of wind out of his sails so to speak. With a win here, either one of these guys would go on the short list for a potential title shot, but especially Luque as he's been at the top of the rankings for a little bit longer. Of course, Khamzat Chimaev is in the driver seat on that front (assuming Leon Edwards is already getting the next title shot) but if Chimaev can't get past Covington, then the winner of this fight would have the clearest path. Luque's style is much the opposite of Belal's. He relies on being explosive, powerful, and athletic. Luque is much more of a striker as well, so he's going to be looking to keep this fight standing in all likelihood. Luque strikes with both power and volume. He does have a tendency to drift from aggressive into the realm of chaotic and that results in him absorbing quite a bit of damage at times. He actually absorbs 0.02 more strikes per minute than he lands, so he will be there for Belal to hit. Luque is also a pretty good submission grappler. He doesn't land a ton of takedowns on his own, but when the fight finds itself there, he is very capable of finding a submission to either allow himself the opportunity to get back up or finish the fight right there. Luque finds ways to finish the fight inside the distance. Of his 21 career wins, only 2 of them came via decision and only 1 of them came in the UFC, which was to Mike Perry. The first weakness of Luque's game is something I already touched on, which is his striking defense. To be frank, he just gets hit way too much. Surprisingly, he's never been knocked out, which is a testament to his chin, but taking that much damage makes it tough to win decisions. Belal is going to be throwing a lot of strikes at him and he's going to have to be better defensively or he's going to get out pointed unless he can get some knockdowns. The other main area of weakness in his game is his wrestling. While Luque is a very gifted submission grappler, his pure wrestling does lack at times. He almost never tries to get his own takedowns. He lands them at a 50% rate, but is only averaging 0.64 per 15 minutes. He doesn't defend takedowns at a great rate either. 64% takedown defense is just ok, but with someone like Belal Muhammad on the other side, I'm not sure just ok will be enough. Vicente Luque has been in the title picture recently for a reason and his skills are at the level to get there. This is another chance in his career for him to make the jump into the really elite level of the rankings and I'm excited to see how it plays out.
I feel like I have kind of given away a lot of the keys to the fight already, but we'll go over them briefly. The first key is that we need to see Belal stand up to the power of Luque. In their first fight, Belal took a huge shot early and got finished in the first minute and a half of the fight. If Luque's power is just too much for Belal to stand up to, then we'll get a very similar result. However, I do believe we will see a much different fight. Belal doesn't have the history of getting knocked out, so I don't expect him to fall as quickly this time, if at all. The next key is going to be the pace for Belal. We've seen Luque miss weight before and while I don't view him as a particularly large welterweight, he must have to cut a decent amount of weight. If he is at all diminished or depleted, Belal will have the opportunity to tire him out. If Belal can push a pace early, he may be able to take advantage of an exhausted Luque late. I think Belal will look to wrestle early, which will take some of the juice off of Luque's punches. If Belal is able to ground Luque early, he can start grinding him down and make the fight a more level playing field athletically. That leads right into the next key, which is the grappling. Luque doesn't have great takedown defense, but Belal doesn't hit his takedowns with great efficiency. It isn't immediately clear where the advantage will be, but whoever can come out on the positive side of the grappling will have a clear path to victory. We've seen Belal grind people out on the ground, so if given the opportunity, I don't see why he wouldn't do it again. If Luque can stuff all of those takedowns, he will limit Belal to a striker, which will be to Luque's advantage. He is the more technical striker as well as being faster and more powerful. This leads right into the final key that I want to talk about, which will be the striking defense. While Luque has all of those advantages I just stated, he doesn't have the striking defense that Belal does. Belal is able to limit the damage he takes much more efficiently and that will be huge for him. Luque absorbs a ton of strikes and if Belal is going to land with his good volume striking and then make Luque miss defensively, that will open the door for him. The way I see it, the longer this fight goes, the more it favors Belal Muhammad. As the pace starts to wear Luque down, he will lose a little bit of that power and explosiveness. Luque could do enough damage early to have Belal compromised late, but I wouldn't say the odds of that are super high. I'll be making my picks tomorrow, but this is a fight that I am looking forward to even with the card that lacks a little.
What do you guys think? What do you think of the card? Who are you picking to win this fight? What are your keys for both sides? Leave your thoughts and comments below. Also, shoutout to Belal Muhammad for fighting during Ramadan. I'm not super familiar with all of the details, but I know that there is fasting involved, so I hope that doesn't really effect his performance and that he can fight to his full capabilities. Thanks for reading and have a good one.
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