Islam Makhachev made a statement with his emphatic victory over Alexander Volkanovski at UFC 294. He shut down his critics, who felt ‘Volk’ had won their first fight with his first-round head kick KO of the Australian. However, that fight was made on short notice after Charles Oliveira pulled out due to an injury.

Oliveira was supposed to rematch Makhachev in Abu Dhabi, but cut his eyebrow while training less than two weeks from the card. Following this, Palestinian #2 ranked UFC welterweight Belal Muhammad told fans that this was deliberate on Oliveira’s part as he did not want to face Makhachev last month. This, predictably, irritated the former lightweight champion, who gave a lambasting reply to the Palestinian.

Charles Oliveira reprimands Belal Muhammad for injury take

Oliveira was asked his thoughts on Muhammad’s comments about his pre-UFC 294 injury. While not taking his name directly, the ‘Do Bronx’ said that people like Muhammad had not achieved even half of what he has. He advised the welterweight to concentrate on his own weight division and stop talking about him.

“All these guys, they live their lives talking a bunch of sh** about me. All these guys haven’t achieved what I’ve achieved. That’s the truth… His focus should be to train and dedicate himself to beating the guys in his weight class and stop talking about me,” a visibly ticked-off Oliveira said.

Oliveira will most probably fight Makhachev for the lightweight title next. UFC boss Dana White has indicated as such when asked by the press in the UFC 294 post-fight press conference. Interestingly, this is not the first person to have claimed that Oliveira did not want to face Makhachev at UFC 294.

This was the position of Makhachev’s childhood friend Khabib Nurmagomedov, who had said that the Brazilian will not show up for their UFC 295 bout weeks before Oliveira was forced to pull-out due to his training injury.

Belal Muhammad manager pushes for a title shot

Colby Covington will face champion Leon Edwards for the welterweight title at UFC 296 in December. And Muhammad will be watching the bout closely as he might be fighting the winner for his next bout, according to his manager Ali Abdelaziz. The latter said that Dana White has promised the Palestinian a title shot soon, and that no other fight makes sense for him.

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Kamaru Usman, who is the only person ahead of the #2 ranked Muhammad in the welterweight rankings recently moved up to middleweight. The Nigerian has indicated he will stick around at 185 and possibly even challenge Dricus Du Plessis next year for a middleweight title shot. However, no official announcement has been made by the UFC. Do you think Belal Muhammad deserves a title shot at the winner of the UFC 296 main event? Let us know in the comments section below.

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