UFC’s Belal Muhammad considered amputation procedure to save canceled title fight

Belal Muhammad was willing to do almost anything to save his planned UFC 310 title fight with Shavkat Rakhmonov — even amputate the infected toe that eventually caused him to withdraw from the matchup.

UFC 310, the promotion’s final pay-per-view of the year, goes down tomorrow night in Las Vegas. Chicago’s Muhammad, the welterweight champion, was originally slated to defend his belt against Kazakhstan’s Rakhmonov in the main event. Unfortunately, he suffered a toe injury in training. The injury later became infected, and forced him off the card.

From the sounds of it, the decision to withdraw from the fight was not made lightly. The champ clearly considered all other options before pulling the plug.

“What if you got rid of the toe?”

“It got to the point where I was like, ‘Bro, what if you got rid of the toe?’ What do I need to do to get back in there as quickly as possible? But the way the doctor was saying it, it was like a bone infection,” Muhammad told MMA Junkie. “So it wasn’t like people were saying: ‘Oh, you’ve got a broken toe.’ I’m like, bro, if it was a toe, I had a broken toe for over a year.

“And then that toe got infected because of that, so that went directly into the bone and it was climbing up the foot,” Muhammad continued. “So he was like, ‘Bro, you’ll get your foot amputated.’ It ain’t that. So for me, it was heartbreaking, obviously, but just trusting God, trusting God has a plan for me, knowing that everything happens for a reason. And now that I look at it from the bigger picture side, I’m hoping that there’s a reason for it.”

Thankfully, there is good news. Muhammad was recently cleared to fight again. He should be back in action sometime in the first half of next year.

That said, it sounds like it will be a tough road back.

“I’m cleared and good to go,” he said. “But now, it’s like getting back to where I was. I literally I did like 50 pushups, and I felt like I was in a war and I got hit by a truck. I’m like, ‘Bro, this is how it feels to not be in shape?’ It’s crazy.”

When Belal Muhammad withdrew from UFC 310, his challenger Shavkat Rakhmonov agreed to a short-notice fight with fellow undefeated contender Ian Machado Garry. The expectation is that the winner will be next for the champ.