Should Jamaican Leon Edwards Be Disqualified?

News Americas, LAS VEGAS, NV, Tues. Mar. 16, 2021: A top UFC champion claims a Jamaican UFC fighter, should be disqualified for punching his opponent in the eye.

According to Telecomasia.net, UFC champion Colby Covington, who has won 16 fights in 18 UFC fights, believes that Leon Edwards, should be disqualified.

On Saturday, March 13, 2021, Edwards faced Belal Muhammad in the main event of UFC Fight Night 187. The fight was Edwards’ first in over 1.5 years. He fought Rafael dos Anjos in July 2019 and it went extremely poorly. The Jamaican dominated the first round, but Edwards punched Muhammad in the eye at 18 seconds of the second. He was unable to continue the fight and as a result, the fight was stopped and declared void. Belal later wrote on social media that he had not suffered any serious injuries.

After the fight, Edwards apologized to his opponent and claimed that the poke was an accident. However, not everyone believed him. Covington said in an interview that Leon acted on purpose and should be disqualified. A suspension was out of the question.

But Edwards has found defenders, including UFC lightweight champion Aljamain Sterling, a Jamaican American. He wrote on his Twitter that the poke to the eye was definitely unintentional and UFC fighters need a different model of glove that squeezes the fingers and prevents incidents like the one that occurred in the Edwards-Muhammad fight.

It’s up to each individual to decide whether the poke was intentional or not. However, both opponents and supporters of Edwards can agree on one thing: it’s a shame that this fight ended this way.

Edwards has practically no weak points. The athlete fights and boxes with the same quality. His signature moves are kicks to the body, the use of elbows to approach, takedowns.

Some believe that Edwards lacks physical strength, but he approached the fight with Muhammad as a clear favorite, although both had 18 wins and 3 losses under their belt. The head of the UFC, Dana White, even said that in the event of a spectacular victory, Leon would receive the right to fight for the champion title. But the problem lies precisely in the fact that Edwards rarely wins spectacularly. In the UFC, he won 10 wins, 7 of which ended by decision. However, this time everything turned out very badly, so Leon will have to wait until he becomes the champion.

But the Jamaican fighter knows where he is going. He is confident that he was born to become a champion and works hard to achieve his goal.