Remembering Belal 'Iron' Muhammad’s most brutal body-kicking moments: when the crowd…

That lukewarm coke went down the wrong way when I saw that leg kick in real time — chest thumping like I'd won the lottery, neighbours banging on walls cos I wouldn't shut up about it

remember that first round against laurenç serano at ufc 276? the one where iron looked like a shark who just sniffed blood in the water for the first time in his life? you know the clip i’m talking about — the one where he landed that overhand right, then a left hook to the temple, and before serano’s body even hit the canvas, belal already had him in the mount breathing down his neck like a ghost who won’t leave. i was watching it alone at 3 am in a diner in toronto because my kids were asleep and i needed a fight that wouldn’t wake them up. i tapped the screen to rewind it three times because no way that combo was real. the diner owner, old joe, came over with a refill of black coffee and just nodded — “kid’s got hands like bricks,” he said. and we both sat there in silence while the clink of the coffee cup echoed louder than the octagon cheers in our heads. watching iron move like that — no wasted motion, no theatrics, just violence wrapped in calm — makes you feel like the sport hasn’t lost its soul yet. ah well, we’ll see.

You ever catch yourself rewinding that Serano clinic Belal put on and then stumble straight into the Will Brooks wars? Different flavors of same purity, but it’s not even about the moves—it’s about how both nights felt like a graveyard shift at the school disco, where every flash of his style was metronome-tight and the volume in the room jumped a whole decibel before you even clocked the first hit. Brooks felt like watching the same fight script fed through a filter of pure hunger, no frills, just him walking through a door he’d already kicked in.

ah man that Serano clinic?! that overhand right was so crisp i swear i flinched when belal pulled it off cos it looked like he’d practised it a thousand times just to punish us lazy fans who thought he’d struggle in that cage 😂 but yeh fa off, watching that combo at 3am in a greasy spoon diner in birmingham with a brew gone cold cuz i was too hyped to even sip it—felt like getting served the good stuff on a silver platter while everyone else was still arguing about loadouts iron don’t dance around, he just walks in and leaves bodies where they drop 👊🔥 ah well, nowt to do

bloody hell when i saw that first round against anderson silva at ufc 300 i near enough emptied every swear word in my south london vocabulary straight into my mate’s crisps bucket — not because i was angry, mind you, but because iron stepped in like a man who’d forgotten his own shadow existed, and by the time that second leg kick whacked anderson’s hip it was like the whole joint had got the hiccups and wouldn’t stop.

remember that time belal knocked some dude out in the 1st round at ufc 280 and we all thought it was over but then 5 mins later the replay showed the entire crowd in abu dhabi stood up so fast the bench seats groaned like a hungry grizzly bear 🐻🔥 my mate kevin swore he felt the vibration through his ringfit adventure controller still plugged in from new years — turned into a full blown rave in the living room, kids running around with forks as mickey mouses, wife yelling “stop flinging pizza dough off the ceiling!” and the dog just vibing in the corner like he knew this man was built different iron didn’t just break the guy, he broke the octagon’s mood ring too