Kamaru Usman on Belal Muhammad: ‘You probably have to have security’ backstage with us at UFC event

Kamaru Usman says there’s no love lost between him and UFC welterweight champ Belal Muhammad.

Both men have fights booked. Muhammad is headlining UFC 315 this Saturday in his first title defense against Jack Della Maddalena, while Usman returns for the first time in nearly two years when he faces Joaquin Buckley in the main event of UFC Atlanta.

Since Muhammad won the title, Usman said the new champ began taking his social media aim at him, and Usman said he’d rather talk it out — which they tried to do on an infamous, unreleased episode of his podcast Pound 4 Pound, with co-host Henry Cejudo. Things got heated, but no other information was revealed outside of that, but things have gotten to a point that if he ran into Muhammad backstage at a UFC event, it could pop off.

“Probably,” Usman told ESPN MMA. “I say that because, obviously, I’m very level-headed — especially when I’m outside of the cage — but for the last almost two years, year and a half, I haven’t been in the thick of it. There’s a thing, there’s a transition. When you’re not in it, and people expect us to be these fighters and we’re always on go mode to where I’m outside of the cage, people are like, ‘Why are you so calm? You’re a scary fighter.’

“But I’m not like that, and so when you’re in the thick of it, you’re on alert. Even me and Georges St-Pierre, we had this conversation where he expressed that to me. ... But now that I’m back in the thick of it, yeah, you probably have to have security back there with us.”

Muhammad is unbeaten in his past 11 fights, and has fought his way up the divisional ranks before earning his title shot at UFC 304 this past July. “Remember the Name” dominated Leon Edwards to capture UFC gold for the first time.

While being on such a long winning streak is impressive, title defenses are the key stat when it comes to being ranked among the division’s all-time greats. Usman was asked if Muhammad has the ability to join the likes of Matt Hughes, Georges St-Pierre, and himself, and put together a generational run as champ at 170 pounds.

“I think so,” Usman explained. “I think so because in order to really have a stronghold on a divsion, you have to be good enough everywhere. In the divisions where you see [the title] change hands over and over, usually the champion is lacking some sort of skill. ...

“And now Belal is in a place where [like Hughes, St-Pierre, and myself], he can kind of do everything pretty good. We haven’t really seen his punching power, but now that he’s champion, give him time to potentially work on being confident in that aspect, we might be able to see it. So yeah, I think there’s potential, but that’s only defined if you are able to get through all these different kind of guys like myself, like a Buckley, like a [Michael Morales], like an Ian [Machado] Garry, and Shavkat Rakhmonov. If you are able to get through these different types of challenges, then you can say you’ve built a nice kind of legacy for yourself.”