Belal Muhammad has vowed to carry the Palestine flag to the cage at UFC 315, where he defends the welterweight title against Jack Della Maddalena.
In Montreal on 9 May, Muhammad will make his first defence of the belt, which he took from Leon Edwards with a unanimous-decision win in July. The UFC 315 main event follows an online episode from March, when the Palestine flag was removed from Muhammad’s fighter profile on ufc.com before being restored.
Muhammad, 36, fights out of Chicago but was born to Palestinian parents, and many fans speculated that the absence of the flag on ufc.com was related to Palestine’s complicated history with Israel. The nations have been locked in fresh conflict since late 2023.
When asked whether he will carry Palestine’s flag to the Octagon at the Bell Centre, Muhammad told MMA Fighting this week: “Yeah, 100 per cent. We’ve talked about it, and they’ve accepted it. Nothing is going to stop me from doing it.”
“It’s hard, especially right now. It’s been over two years now where they’re dying, they’re starving, the people over there are in so much pain. The world’s just watching it, the world’s just coming up with excuses for it. It’s wild. For me, it just makes me want to work that much harder for them.
“It makes me go to the gym, run that extra mile, lift that extra weight, because I can’t lose. There’s no way I’m going to let the people see me not get my hand raised. When they see me fight that day, they’re going to see that flag get raised. When they see me win that day, they’re going to see that flag get raised.
“They’re going to see me get on the mic and talk about them. They’re going to see me get on the mic and be a voice for them. The only way I can be their voice is by continuing to win. I just have to keep continuing to work, keep continuing to push it, and it’s all in God’s hands. God has a plan for everything, and I’m hoping this finally comes to an end soon.
“I’ve just been getting so many messages, people just wanting to know what’s happening there because they see me carrying that flag and what it means and what it means to me. If you’re human, you want to know what’s going on there. If you’re human and you see it and you ignore it, you’re not really human. You don’t have a soul.
“If you can see kids starving, if you see kids dying, if you see all their suffering and you just turn your head away, look at yourself in the mirror and really ask yourself: What would you do if those people were from a different country? What would I do if those people weren’t Arab? What would I do if those people weren’t this colour?
“[There are] just so many people out here that are afraid to speak up, afraid to say something, afraid to do anything, because they’re afraid of the consequences. There shouldn’t be consequences for being human.”
Muhammad was due to make his first title defence in December, but withdrew from a fight with Shavkat Rakhmonov after suffering a bone infection. The bout was due to be reorganised for this spring, but Rakhmonov is now battling his own injury issues.
As a result, Della Maddalena was pulled from March’s UFC London event – where he would have fought Edwards – and placed in a title fight with Muhammad. Edwards instead fought Sean Brady in London, losing via submission.
Australia’s Della Maddalena last fought in March 2024, stopping Gilbert Burns in impressive fashion before undergoing hand surgery later in the year.
