Graphic credit – UFC
Newly crowned welterweight champion Belal Muhammad is set to defend his title for the first time against undefeated Shavkat Rakhmonov at UFC 310, Las Vegas on December 7th. The champion is currently on a 11 fight unbeaten streak after dethroning Leon Edwards at the O2 Arena this year. Shavkat who has a perfect record, finishing all eighteen of his opponents with half of his fights all being finished in the very first round, gets his chance to be Kazakhstan’s first ever UFC champion. In this bout the 29 year old gets to prove why he is the best fighter on the planet as he comes into this fight being a big favourite against the more experienced champion, who he will look to get another finish against. Whilst Muhammad looks to defend his title and look to close out the year with two historic performances.
There is a lot of hype over the young Kazakhstan prospect as he is one of a few in the UFC who has a perfect record and the only fighter in the UFC to have all his wins by finish. Shavkat is a young fast paced fighter who applies pressure onto his opponents, especially in the early rounds, which explains why half of his eighteen wins have come from the very first round. The challenger hasn’t fought in the octagon since December last year which means he would have only fought twice in just under a year. The opponents are getting tougher for Shavkat as he has been working his way up the welterweight rankings, yet he is still making it look easy to finish his opponents. Shavkats’ last win was against fan favourite, Stephen ‘Wonderboy’ Thompson at UFC 296 when he got the win via submission in the second round.
Muhammad is coming off a win over the former English Champion Leon Edwards, which he won by a majority decision at Edwards home turf. With Belal’s resume stacking up with higher level fighters, a win against Rakhmonov could put himself in line for double champion status. Muhammad previously said on grindcitymedia, “ I’ve already beat so many top contenders.. It tells me I got maybe like two fights and now I can start talking about double-champ status because I already beat all these guys in the top ten”. The current middleweight champion is Dricus Du Plessis who is coming off a win over former two time middleweight champion Israel Adesanya.
The champion, who is on an eleven fight unbeaten streak in the UFC since April 2019 has already previously stated that he wants Shavkat to be his first title defence, Belal, via the KevinI YouTube channel said, “I’d rather have it to be Shavkat. I think he has more aura. I think he has the undefeated-ness to him”. The fight in December means we could potentially see one of those unbeaten streaks collapse.
The data in the chart above shows all of Shavkat Rakhmonov’s wins which are on his resume. Rakhmonov has had eighteen fights and has never been to a decision in his career, he has finished all eighteen opponents via (T)KO or Submission. As the pie chart shows above, Rakhmonov has won ten of his fights by submission and eight of his fights by (T)KO, creating a flawless professional record eighteen wins, zero losses.
One of the main reasons why Rakhmonov is coming into this fight as the clear favourite is because he has finished all his opponents he has ever fought with half of his wins coming by finish in the very first round. Shavkat is a clear dangerous contender for anybody which is why he is also becoming popular with the fans as they know they have an exciting fighter on the roster who doesn’t fear anybody and brings them the exciting fights they all want to see.
The data in the chart above shows all of Belal Muhammad’s wins which are on his resume. The data shows that the champion, Belal, has had the majority of his wins by a decision in his career at (18). Muhammad has only had 6 stoppage wins in his career, five of them come by (T)KO and only one by submission.
With the majority of Muhammad’s wins being a decision in his career with few stoppages, this is one of the main reasons why the undisputed champion is coming into this fight as the underdog. Muhammad’s wins show that he is not the type of fighter that will finish you via a stoppage, it will most likely go to the distance, which means the fight would mainly favour Rakhmonov as it gives him twenty-five minutes to work for a finish on the champion to add further to his perfect record.
If we put the donut charts together and compare the two, Rakhmonov is clearly going to be the threat in their bout in December. Rakhmonov is going to look to set the pace in the early rounds and would think to himself he doesn’t have a threat coming his way due to Belal’s stoppage rate being low. This may make Shavkat Rakhmonov feel much more confident and comfortable in the octagon knowing that he will feel like he has much time to get a finish against Muhammad.
The data in the chart above shows Rakhmonov and Muhammad’s octagon times in each of their last six UFC bouts (Rakhmonov blue) and (Muhammad yellow). Each bout they have fought shows their finish time in that particular fight, as you can see on the ‘y axis’ it has the number of minutes per bout, the maximum number of minutes a bout lasts is twenty-five minutes.
In the graph you can see that the longest octagon time that Shavkat Rakhmonov has had in a single bout is 14 minutes 17 seconds which was when he submitted Geoff Neal in the final round in March 2023. The rest of Rakhomonov’s bouts in that chart do not go past the ten minutes stage, with his quickest win being at 4 minutes 10 seconds against Carlston Harris in 2022. This data shows that Shavkat does not take long to find a finish in the octagon which could be a serious threat to Belal Muhammad. In the graph we can also see Muhammad’s octagon time in his last six bouts in the UFC, five of the six bouts in the graph have reached the distance which indicates Belal may have struggled to find a form of finish to win them bouts. Belal’s shortest time in the octagon in the graph was at 9 minutes 47 seconds which was against Sean Brady, who was also a big prospect at the time who had a record of (15W-0L), Muhammad won that fight via tko.
This fight is not only exciting because we have two of the best fighters in the world competing against each other but also because both fighters have held an unbeaten streak for years and one of them could potentially end in December. The fight also opens up so many more intriguing fights and opportunities for the UFC. If the current champion, Belal Muhammad does win, we may get to see another one of the few double champion fights take place to see if Muhammad could be a current two time UFC world champion at welterweight and middleweight. If the challenger, Shavkat Rakhmonov wins, we will see the first ever UFC champion from Kazakhstan who would be 19-0, which could open up a door for the dominant pound for pound best fighter on the planet Islam Makhachev to finally get his shot at fighting for a second belt as Islam has cleared out the lightweight division.
Islam Makhachev, the lightweight champion and pound for pound number one fighter has always said he will not go up and compete for a second belt while Belal Muhammad is champion as they are teammates and friends outside the UFC. “This guy broke my plans to be double champion but i am really happy for him and happy for his country he deserves it”, Makhachev said via TheMacLife YouTube channel, when he was asked about fighting for a second belt at welterweight when his teammate, Muhammad became the undisputed welterweight champion at the O2 Arena this year in London.
UFC 310 takes place in Las Vegas, Nevada at the T-Mobile arena with Belal ‘Remember the name’ Muhammad defending his welterweight title for the first time against Shavkat ‘Nomad’ Rakhmonov. Both fighters have a lot on the line in terms for their career and future but with the challenger being the clear favourite in this fight coming in with his devastating record, Muhammad may have some work to do in terms of defending the threat of Shavkat Rakhmonov. Shavkat looks to extend and continue his undefeated, 100% finishing record while most importantly becoming undisputed world champion, whilst Belal Muhammad looks to defend his throne and seek opportunity to fight for another world championship and become the 10th ever two time UFC champion.
