Alex Volkanovski recalls weird miscommunication with “salty” Belal Muhammad: “I’m not holding any malice"

Belal Muhammad's comments about his "hatred" for upcoming opponent Leon Edwards have left some people scratching their heads. The title challenger has never displayed such strong negative feelings towards a opponent, and questions have been raised about the origins of his feelings.

Alex Volkanovski recently speculated on the comments made by 'Remember The Name', and recalled a strange interaction he had with the welterweight title challenger in the past.

'The Great' discussed his interaction with Muhammad during an interview with Jose Youngs, saying this:

"We were doing a fight reaction... Watching the [UFC] fights, and [Muhammad] was doing it somewhere else. The production teams were trying to get us in contact, they gave him my number and he tried to call me. I didn't answer, my phone is always on silent. But he just assumed I was knocking him, that I wasn't answering his calls on purpose."

Volkanovski continued:

"He goes straight on Twitter and goes, 'Max [Holloway] is gonna flog you anyway.' And stuff like this. I ended up calling him back 'cause I saw [the missed call]. I hadn't seen the tweet yet, and I'm like, 'Hey man sorry I missed your call.' It was on FaceTime, and he was like, 'Don't worry about the tweets I was just joking!' I'm like, 'What do you mean?' I go look at it, and I'm like, 'You really got that salty and angry because I missed your call?' I shook his hand after that, obviously I'm not holding any malice."

He continued:

"Now he's trying to play on that now... If you're gonna go down that route, then you may as well own it."

Watch Alex Volkanovski discuss Belal Muhammad below (4:25):

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Leon Edwards dismisses Belal Muhammad's takedown threat ahead of UFC 304

Belal Muhammad recently claimed that a victory over Leon Edwards would see him soar up the list of all-time greatest welterweight fighters to occupy the No.2 slot underneath Georges St-Pierre.

'GSP' is regarded as not just the greatest welterweight ever, but arguably the best MMA figher of all-time. Given the Canadian's prestige, Muhammad's comments have caused a stir.

St. Pierre is also regarded as one of the best wrestlers in UFC history, and ahead of UFC 304, Edwards contrasted his upcoming opponent's skillset to that of 'GSP'. He said this:

"Everyone knows his gameplan will be to come out and try wrestling. But even his wrestling, it ain't all that. He ain't f**king Khabib [Nurmagomedov] or GSP, he's Belal. Let's see."

Watch Leon Edwards discuss Belal Muhammad below (3:20):