UFC 304 appears to be a personal affair for welterweight title challenger Belal Muhammad, who has had to wait a long time to get his shot.
Ever since the way that his first fight ended with Leon Edwards three years ago, Muhammad has been campaigning for this rematch and slandering the character of "Rocky."
"Remember the Name" has continued to speak about how winning the title is one thing but beating Edwards for it in particular makes this fight even more meaningful to him.
The champion, on the other hand, believes that his opponent is coming up with this narrative and has referred to him as "deluded."
John Gooden Believes Leon Edwards Isn't Bothered By Belal Muhammad's Words Pre-UFC 304
Muhammad's trash talk at the press conference on fight week didn't appear to bother Edwards, and UFC commentator John Gooden believes that this comes from experience.
He spoke in an interview with InsideFighting about how he doesn't think the champion is going to be bothered by anything that his next opponent can say about him.
Having already gone through the experience of facing Colby Covington in his last outing, Edwards has been through the ringer when it comes to pre-fight comments.
Leon, I think, used to suffer from some of that and biting back and not really finding the right sort of quips and banter to answer back. I'm going back to like, Darren Till times, because before that, it didn't really happen. But I feel like when he walked out and then he got the boos in London, I think he was a little bit p***** off.
But, he's now gone through issues with Kamaru, Kamaru was still digging at home and it wasn't egregious and really horrible and toxic like Colby was. But I think when you go through a little bit more and a little bit more, your skin gets thicker, and then you realize like, 'What's the use in me taking this on board?' And I have to say, I've had a few interactions with Leon now and his team and I think he's just laughing a lot of it off. Belal is really going in on Leon, really going in.
