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Belal Muhammad has historically struggled with southpaw strikers, especially long southpaws with effective kicking games. Out of his three losses, two of them were to southpaw kickers in Alan Jouban and Geoff Neal. His only other loss to Vicente Luque was later avenged. Muhmmad’s only notable win against high level southpaw striker came against Stephen Thompson, in a fight Muhammad was able to keep mostly on the mat, finding takedowns early in each round and avoiding much time spent on the feet with Thompson.
Muhammad fights Leon Edwards at UFC 304, one of the sharpest southpaw strikers in MMA. When the pair met for the first time a couple years ago, Edwards looked a step ahead of Muhammad for a round before an Edwards eye poke ended the fight prematurely. Muhammad’s five fight win streak after the Edwards No Contest has earned him a rematch and a shot at the Welterweight title, but to capture gold he needs to overcome one of his most difficult matchups.
The jab is his most developed and consistent weapon, relied upon to draw reactions and safely initiate entries, but it also serves as his only true high percentage intercepting counter, backing opponents off when they get aggressive. He also possesses an effective kicking game, but the kicks mostly come off his left side as well. He’ll throw out flicking lead leg kicks to the arms or body and when he wants to sit down on a hard kick, he usually switches to southpaw and sends the left leg hard to the body.
Muhammad’s tools on his right side are comparatively weak. His right hand is sloppy and awkward, often disconnected from his hips, and is frequently flung out in a loose, quasi-straight punch with a chicken-winged elbow. When he throws it as an overhand, he falls and leans into it rather than sitting his hips down into the blow. The punches come out slow with lots of telegraph and don’t mesh very well with his lead hand setups. His kicks off the right side are similar - his mechanics are less efficient and they’re used more sparingly than his left kicks, even against southpaws when his right leg coincides with the open ribs.
The left-side dominance of Muhammad creates a clear issue against long southpaws. Since the lead hands of an orthodox and southpaw fighter clash, getting a jab through becomes trickier. The rear side takes on a more prominent role, as the opponent’s chin is no longer hidden behind their lead shoulder, creating an open lane for the rear straight and rear kick. Certainly the jab shouldn’t be ignored in an open stance matchup, but it becomes more critical as a setup tool for the rear hand, and controlling a fight solely through the strength of one’s jab more difficult.
But the issue is also one of distance. Muhammad’s effective distance is just at the edge of jabbing range, so between his jab and left kicks, he usually ends up having the more effective long range tools than his opponents. But southpaw kickers flip that dynamic on its head. With the clash of the lead hands, fighters tend to stand further apart, and the southpaw kicker’s optimal range is longer than Muhammad’s. Leon Edwards, for example, prefers to set up a step outside jabbing range so he can pick his man off with long range kicks, while they have to take an extra step for their jab to reach him.
In the first Edwards fight, Muhammad spent most of the fight outside his effective jabbing range, kept at kicking range where Edwards could ignore most of his jab feints as the lead hand failed to present an immediate threat. But the stance matchup also killed his left body kick and forced an open side kick battle with the rear legs, where Muhammad is far less comfortable. The result was that Muhammad was forced to close distance to reach Edwards in a matchup that made his primary distance-closing weapon (the jab) much more cumbersome.
Another aspect of Muhammad’s game made more difficult by the southpaw matchup is his outside footwork. One of Muhammad’s biggest strengths is active lateral movement that allows him to play matador, side stepping his opponents attacks and constantly turning them into his own. But his lateral movement is mostly done through shifting side-steps rather than the sure-footed short steps, pivots, and hop-steps you typically see from outfighters who place a premium on remaining in sound punching position.
Muhammad doesn’t comfortably move in both directions while maintaining his stance. Instead, he typically circles toward his rear side in either stance, and when he wants to change direction he steps out to the side to open his stance, then brings his rear leg forward into the opposite stance.
The shifting side-steps have advantages and drawbacks. The change of stance opens up new weapons and can often leave an opponent briefly confused about what to watch out for. A lot of Muhammad’s best attacks come off the side-step to southpaw opening up the open side left kick and left straight. If opponents look to lunge at him from afar, the side-step can take him out of their path and provide a counter opportunity. But the constant changing of stance and one-note directionality in each stance also leave him out of position to deal with attacks in a way that can be predicted and exploited.
These footwork patterns are less useful against southpaws, however. One of the biggest advantages for Muhammad against orthodox opponents is that the switch to southpaw opens up his left kick, but that’s not there against southpaws. If an orthodox fighter steps forward with a jab, Muhammad’s sidestep into southpaw can take him out of the jab’s path while simultaneously lengthening the distance their rear hand needs to cover in order to reach him. But that too changes against southpaws, where the switch takes him into their jab and shortens the path of their rear hand. A big advantage of the side-step into southpaw is the sudden lengthening of distance, but against southpaws the stance matchup already maximizes distance.
Shifting the way Muhammad does can still be useful in open stance matchups - see Leon Edwards using similar diagonal shifting footwork to turn Kamaru Usman and lead him into outside leg kicks - but it just doesn’t jive well with the tools Muhammad has at his disposal. The primary offensive utility of Muhammad’s shifting is suddenly putting his open side weapons in the rear, but it does the opposite against southpaws, and he lacks active and potent leg kicks to exploit the closed stance dynamic.
When Muhammad faces southpaws, his feet settle down and he stops switching as actively, but his discomfort moving within his stance remains. Without access to the shifting footwork for quick lateral movement and directions changes, he becomes one note and predictable in his circling. Against orthodox opponents, Muhammad is constantly changing directions and using the full extent of his lateral movement, but against southpaws he’s laser focused on circling outside their lead foot to the exclusion of anything else.
It’s often said that the way to beat a southpaw is to stay outside his lead foot and throw the right hand, but that’s a trite generality that both ignores the specificities of matchups and has you attacking in predictable patterns. On the contrary, circling into the southpaw’s rear hand can expose you to it, but it also serves to draw it out and allow you to get outside its path. In contrast, when only circling away from the rear hand it’s relatively simple for the southpaw to open his stance to throw the straight across his body and track your movement.
Edwards himself has no problem just stepping his lead foot out and turning with opponents to land his rear hand as they circle:
Aside from making Muhammad more predictable, there are a few more specific issues his footwork patterns present against long southpaw kickers. Muhammad rarely kicks with his lead leg against southpaws and his rear leg is comparitively weak, which means that an effective long range kicker like Edwards or Geoff Neal will have the more effective long range tools. This leaves Muhammad needing to force exchanges and close distance to get off his offense, but constantly circling outside the lead leg is a poor way to do this.
Another hit against the “step outside and throw the rear hand” theory of fighting southpaws is that it provides a constant escape route to southpaws who are most comfortable operating from kicking distance. By stepping outside in open space with punches, you create even more space on the open side for the kicker to retreat to.
Unless their back is near the cage, a southpaw kicker like Edwards who’s able to enforce kicking distance can simply back off and circle inside at the first sign of their opponent’s outside step. When timed well it can even lead to a dominant inside angle and clean counter lefts. You see this dynamic play out often in the fights of Thai kicking specialist, Tawanchai, and it was something I warned about when scouting Tawanchai for Jo Nattawut’s team.
In addition, stepping outside the lead foot primarily shortens the path of punches and kicks off the rear side, where Muhammad is weak. Taking an inside angle, however, shortens the path of the jab and makes it easier to sneak inside the southpaw’s lead hand and shoulder. In his first fight with Edwards, Muhammad spent most of his time circling toward the outside and struggled to find his offense at range, while Edwards was able to land consistently. It may be worth rethinking that in the rematch and using both directions to avoid predictability.
So Muhammad is relatively weak on the his side, loses his most consistent long distance tools against southpaws, and falls into predictable footwork patterns. Since Edwards prefers to operate at a longer distance than Muhammad, it will be up to Muhammad to close distance and enforce his fight, so let’s take a look at how he tends to close distance against southpaws.
One of the more consistent methods Muhammad has found of entering on a southpaw is batting the lead hand down while stepping outside their lead foot and flashing his jab.
He covers their hand to take away the threat of a counter as he steps outside, and often follows up with a right hook to the body if he’s able to get close enough. Muhammad will sometimes set clever traps with his feet, opening his stance to his left to draw out a jab, then stepping outside it with a counter. But that works best against southpaws looking to close distance with their own jab, which Edwards generally neither wants nor needs to do.
Muhammad was able to land his jab against Edwards in their first fight, but he struggled to find it consistently and build further offense from it:
When he tried this tactic against Edwards, he often ran into the issue we discussed previously. Since Edwards sets up outside jabbing range, Muhammad needs to take an extra step to reach him, unable to land the jab immediately. That step alerts Edwards before the punch gets there, and by stepping outside the lead foot he opens up the inside angle for Edwards. Edwards can safely retreat diagonally to the inside until he’s back at kicking range and Muhammad is unable to follow up.
Muhammad fights Leon Edwards at UFC 304, one of the sharpest southpaw strikers in MMA. When the pair met for the first time a couple years ago, Edwards looked a step ahead of Muhammad for a round before an Edwards eye poke ended the fight prematurely. Muhammad’s five fight win streak after the Edwards No Contest has earned him a rematch and a shot at the Welterweight title, but to capture gold he needs to overcome one of his most difficult matchups.
The Southpaw Problem
To understand why Muhammad typically has a hard time with long southpaws, we first need to step back and look at the fundamental building blocks of his skillset. He’s a jab-heavy striker who lacks comfort and eyes in the pocket. He prefers setting up just on the edge of his own jabbing range, where he can comfortably feint in and out, while giving himself enough distance to see his opponent’s entries coming and give ground to avoid them.The jab is his most developed and consistent weapon, relied upon to draw reactions and safely initiate entries, but it also serves as his only true high percentage intercepting counter, backing opponents off when they get aggressive. He also possesses an effective kicking game, but the kicks mostly come off his left side as well. He’ll throw out flicking lead leg kicks to the arms or body and when he wants to sit down on a hard kick, he usually switches to southpaw and sends the left leg hard to the body.
Muhammad’s tools on his right side are comparatively weak. His right hand is sloppy and awkward, often disconnected from his hips, and is frequently flung out in a loose, quasi-straight punch with a chicken-winged elbow. When he throws it as an overhand, he falls and leans into it rather than sitting his hips down into the blow. The punches come out slow with lots of telegraph and don’t mesh very well with his lead hand setups. His kicks off the right side are similar - his mechanics are less efficient and they’re used more sparingly than his left kicks, even against southpaws when his right leg coincides with the open ribs.
The left-side dominance of Muhammad creates a clear issue against long southpaws. Since the lead hands of an orthodox and southpaw fighter clash, getting a jab through becomes trickier. The rear side takes on a more prominent role, as the opponent’s chin is no longer hidden behind their lead shoulder, creating an open lane for the rear straight and rear kick. Certainly the jab shouldn’t be ignored in an open stance matchup, but it becomes more critical as a setup tool for the rear hand, and controlling a fight solely through the strength of one’s jab more difficult.
But the issue is also one of distance. Muhammad’s effective distance is just at the edge of jabbing range, so between his jab and left kicks, he usually ends up having the more effective long range tools than his opponents. But southpaw kickers flip that dynamic on its head. With the clash of the lead hands, fighters tend to stand further apart, and the southpaw kicker’s optimal range is longer than Muhammad’s. Leon Edwards, for example, prefers to set up a step outside jabbing range so he can pick his man off with long range kicks, while they have to take an extra step for their jab to reach him.
In the first Edwards fight, Muhammad spent most of the fight outside his effective jabbing range, kept at kicking range where Edwards could ignore most of his jab feints as the lead hand failed to present an immediate threat. But the stance matchup also killed his left body kick and forced an open side kick battle with the rear legs, where Muhammad is far less comfortable. The result was that Muhammad was forced to close distance to reach Edwards in a matchup that made his primary distance-closing weapon (the jab) much more cumbersome.
Another aspect of Muhammad’s game made more difficult by the southpaw matchup is his outside footwork. One of Muhammad’s biggest strengths is active lateral movement that allows him to play matador, side stepping his opponents attacks and constantly turning them into his own. But his lateral movement is mostly done through shifting side-steps rather than the sure-footed short steps, pivots, and hop-steps you typically see from outfighters who place a premium on remaining in sound punching position.
Muhammad doesn’t comfortably move in both directions while maintaining his stance. Instead, he typically circles toward his rear side in either stance, and when he wants to change direction he steps out to the side to open his stance, then brings his rear leg forward into the opposite stance.
The shifting side-steps have advantages and drawbacks. The change of stance opens up new weapons and can often leave an opponent briefly confused about what to watch out for. A lot of Muhammad’s best attacks come off the side-step to southpaw opening up the open side left kick and left straight. If opponents look to lunge at him from afar, the side-step can take him out of their path and provide a counter opportunity. But the constant changing of stance and one-note directionality in each stance also leave him out of position to deal with attacks in a way that can be predicted and exploited.
These footwork patterns are less useful against southpaws, however. One of the biggest advantages for Muhammad against orthodox opponents is that the switch to southpaw opens up his left kick, but that’s not there against southpaws. If an orthodox fighter steps forward with a jab, Muhammad’s sidestep into southpaw can take him out of the jab’s path while simultaneously lengthening the distance their rear hand needs to cover in order to reach him. But that too changes against southpaws, where the switch takes him into their jab and shortens the path of their rear hand. A big advantage of the side-step into southpaw is the sudden lengthening of distance, but against southpaws the stance matchup already maximizes distance.
Shifting the way Muhammad does can still be useful in open stance matchups - see Leon Edwards using similar diagonal shifting footwork to turn Kamaru Usman and lead him into outside leg kicks - but it just doesn’t jive well with the tools Muhammad has at his disposal. The primary offensive utility of Muhammad’s shifting is suddenly putting his open side weapons in the rear, but it does the opposite against southpaws, and he lacks active and potent leg kicks to exploit the closed stance dynamic.
When Muhammad faces southpaws, his feet settle down and he stops switching as actively, but his discomfort moving within his stance remains. Without access to the shifting footwork for quick lateral movement and directions changes, he becomes one note and predictable in his circling. Against orthodox opponents, Muhammad is constantly changing directions and using the full extent of his lateral movement, but against southpaws he’s laser focused on circling outside their lead foot to the exclusion of anything else.
It’s often said that the way to beat a southpaw is to stay outside his lead foot and throw the right hand, but that’s a trite generality that both ignores the specificities of matchups and has you attacking in predictable patterns. On the contrary, circling into the southpaw’s rear hand can expose you to it, but it also serves to draw it out and allow you to get outside its path. In contrast, when only circling away from the rear hand it’s relatively simple for the southpaw to open his stance to throw the straight across his body and track your movement.
Edwards himself has no problem just stepping his lead foot out and turning with opponents to land his rear hand as they circle:
Aside from making Muhammad more predictable, there are a few more specific issues his footwork patterns present against long southpaw kickers. Muhammad rarely kicks with his lead leg against southpaws and his rear leg is comparitively weak, which means that an effective long range kicker like Edwards or Geoff Neal will have the more effective long range tools. This leaves Muhammad needing to force exchanges and close distance to get off his offense, but constantly circling outside the lead leg is a poor way to do this.
Another hit against the “step outside and throw the rear hand” theory of fighting southpaws is that it provides a constant escape route to southpaws who are most comfortable operating from kicking distance. By stepping outside in open space with punches, you create even more space on the open side for the kicker to retreat to.
Unless their back is near the cage, a southpaw kicker like Edwards who’s able to enforce kicking distance can simply back off and circle inside at the first sign of their opponent’s outside step. When timed well it can even lead to a dominant inside angle and clean counter lefts. You see this dynamic play out often in the fights of Thai kicking specialist, Tawanchai, and it was something I warned about when scouting Tawanchai for Jo Nattawut’s team.
In addition, stepping outside the lead foot primarily shortens the path of punches and kicks off the rear side, where Muhammad is weak. Taking an inside angle, however, shortens the path of the jab and makes it easier to sneak inside the southpaw’s lead hand and shoulder. In his first fight with Edwards, Muhammad spent most of his time circling toward the outside and struggled to find his offense at range, while Edwards was able to land consistently. It may be worth rethinking that in the rematch and using both directions to avoid predictability.
So Muhammad is relatively weak on the his side, loses his most consistent long distance tools against southpaws, and falls into predictable footwork patterns. Since Edwards prefers to operate at a longer distance than Muhammad, it will be up to Muhammad to close distance and enforce his fight, so let’s take a look at how he tends to close distance against southpaws.
Closing Distance Against The Southpaw
Muhammad has three main tactics for closing distance against southpaws. He’s largely a hit-and-run fighter who prefers to close distance in burts before going back to his outside movement, so most of these tactics are best suited for opponents who have a similar optimal distance to him or are looking to step into him. The long southpaw kicker like Edwards or Neal is so tricky because none of that applies to them.One of the more consistent methods Muhammad has found of entering on a southpaw is batting the lead hand down while stepping outside their lead foot and flashing his jab.
He covers their hand to take away the threat of a counter as he steps outside, and often follows up with a right hook to the body if he’s able to get close enough. Muhammad will sometimes set clever traps with his feet, opening his stance to his left to draw out a jab, then stepping outside it with a counter. But that works best against southpaws looking to close distance with their own jab, which Edwards generally neither wants nor needs to do.
Muhammad was able to land his jab against Edwards in their first fight, but he struggled to find it consistently and build further offense from it:
When he tried this tactic against Edwards, he often ran into the issue we discussed previously. Since Edwards sets up outside jabbing range, Muhammad needs to take an extra step to reach him, unable to land the jab immediately. That step alerts Edwards before the punch gets there, and by stepping outside the lead foot he opens up the inside angle for Edwards. Edwards can safely retreat diagonally to the inside until he’s back at kicking range and Muhammad is unable to follow up.
