Belal Muhammad Reveals Origin of MMA Journey

Belal Muhammad probably wouldn’t have ventured into mixed martial arts if not for his high school wrestling coach.

Growing up in Chicago, Muhammad went to Bogan High School, where he tried his hand at wrestling for two years. Muhammad then joined the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign to study law and had no plans of dabbling in sports.

However, he was intrigued to see his high school wrestling coach competing in MMA at Strikeforce , which was acquired by the UFC in 2011. Muhammad reached out to his teacher and found out that the gym the teacher trained at was close to his mother’s house. Muhammad started training with his teacher when he went home over the weekends and fell in love with the sport in no time. And once he got his hands raised in his first amateur fight, there was no looking back.

“I was in high school, I wrestled for two years there. And then I went to University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. I was going for law. I wasn’t planning to do any sports,” he told WGNNews. “And then I randomly came across him in a newspaper, my old high school coach and he was fighting, he was fighting in Strikeforce on Showtime. And I just sent him a message on Facebook and I was like, ‘You’re a fighter?’ And he was like, ‘Yeah I’m a fighter now, mixed martial artist.’ And [his] was near my mom's house. So whenever I’d come home on the weekend I’ll go link up with him, train and it was like snowball effect from there. I just fell in love with the sport. Started training more, started training more. And after getting my first amateur fight, once you win it, once you get your hand raised, you start getting an addiction.”

While Muhammad’s parents insisted that he keep pursuing law, the future UFC fighter kept postponing it until he lost. However, Muhammad’s law career never came to fruition as he made his way into the UFC, where he became the welterweight champion with a unanimous decision win over Leon Edwards at UFC 304 this past July.

“And I told my parents, ‘Until I lose, let me just keep doing this,’” Muhammad said. “They were like, ‘Finish law school, go there, be a lawyer, it’s way safer.’ And I was like, ‘We’ll do it after I lose.’ And then we got the UFC and now we’re world champion.”