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Belal Muhammad and Khabib Nurmagomedov have a tightly formed bond from training together. The UFC welterweight champion recently indicated how much receiving praise from Nurmagomedov means to him.
During an interview with MMA Fighting's Damon Martin, Muhammad spoke about Nurmagomedov's influence. A clip of the interview was then posted to X via the account @RedCorner_MMA, where he said:
"It's like the highest honor to get respect from him [Khabib Nurmagomedov]. Like I said dude, the fans are whatever. The trolls are going to hate but to get the respect of your peers and to get respect of who I think is the GOAT in the UFC history, the best to ever do it."
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Muhammad added:
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"For him to say that I have the best cardio and to hype me up like that, it means the world. Like just to get messages from him, right, because I look up to him. I wanna emulate him and his style, and the way he fights and the way he acts as a champion. So yeah, it means the world."
Check out Belal Muhammad's comments below:
Belal Muhammad clarifies if he would fight Islam Makhachev
Damon Martin also referenced a prior instance of Khabib Nurmagomedov indicating that Belal Muhammad would never fight Islam Makhachev, because the bonds they have created are too tight-knit for that sort of thing.
This is something that Muhammad also seems to be in alignment with when he recently stated that there was too much "respect and loyalty" with the UFC's lightweight champion. While speaking to Submission Radio, Muhammad quipped:
"Like I said, their team, they've done so much for me. They helped me so much that it wouldn't be worth [it] for me to fight those guys. There's just way too much respect and loyalty on my end."
The Chicago native did spotlight some options that would seem like logical next steps for Makhachev's 155-pound belt including Justin Gaethje, Paddy Pimblett, Charles Oliveira, and Arman Tsarukyan.
Check out Belal Muhammad's comments below (9:15):
