Stephen Thompson vs. Belal Muhammad was a one-sided fight.
The two fighters met in a bout on Saturday night (December 18, 2021) at the UFC Vegas 45 event from Las Vegas, Nevada at the UFC Apex facility.
Thompson threw a lot of kicks to open the first round. Belal did tag him with a right hand. They did some cage fighting while in the clinch and Belal landed several good left hands. Belal did score a late round takedown where he got his back and dished out a lot of damage to the bell. In the second round, Belal scored two takedowns with the latter being the dominant position as he held him there while holding onto his right arm for a submission. Belal later dished out some punches. Belal went right back to the takedown in the third round. Thompson stood up then stuffed a takedown. Belal did get a takedown right after that. Belal got the decision win.
Peep the highlights of the fight courtesy of the UFC’s official Twitter account:
Thompson had gone 2-3 in his previous five outings heading into this fight. He suffered a unanimous decision loss to Darren Till in the main event of the UFC Liverpool event back in May 2018, a loss to former UFC lightweight champion Anthony Pettis in the headliner of UFC on ESPN+ 6 by knockout in the second round, and a decision win Vicente Luque at the UFC 244 pay-per-view event from Madison Square Garden in New York City, New York. He rallied when he beat Geoff Neal at UFC Vegas 17 by decision. His most recent fight saw him get beat by Gilbert Burns by decision at UFC 264.
Muhammad had gone 8-1-1 in his last 10 fights all coming under the UFC banner with his lone loss to Geof Neal by decision in January 2019. He’s won last four fights over Curtis Millender, Takashi Sato, Lyman Good, and Dhiego Lima before going to a non-contest with Leon Edwards at UFC Vegas 21 in March 21.
Let’s see how the fighters reacted to the outcome of this fight:
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