No Punches, No Excuses as Belal Muhammad and Gilbert Burns Embrace Pressure, Rivalries and Unfinished Business Before Their High-Stakes RAF 13 Showdowns in South Florida.

September 16th, 2026

Belal Muhammad and Gilbert Burns have spent much of their careers thriving in uncomfortable places.

Both have been underestimated. Both have fought their way toward the top of the UFC. Both believe pressure reveals more about a competitor than any ranking, prediction or pre-match narrative ever could.

On Friday night, they will attempt to prove it without throwing a single punch.

Muhammad faces Colby Covington in the RAF 13 main event for the Cruiserweight Crossover Championship, while Burns meets Khamzat Chimaev in a highly anticipated wrestling rematch during the co-main event at the Watsco Center in Coral Gables.

The action begins at 8 p.m. and streams live on Fox Nation.

For Muhammad, stripping away striking does not diminish the identity that carried him to the UFC welterweight championship. It concentrates it.

“Just the mindset, knowing that I’m not going to break before these guys,” Muhammad told South Florida Insider. “Staying active, pushing these guys, bullying these guys. Nobody is going to be able to keep that pace.”

That mentality will be tested against Covington, another fighter whose game has traditionally revolved around relentless pressure, conditioning and making opponents miserable.

This matchup also brings something Muhammad said has been absent from several of his recent competitions: genuine emotion.

“I like going against guys that I dislike,” Muhammad said. “It just makes it that much better. When I fought Leon, I disliked Leon. The last couple of guys, I really had no emotional side to it. This one, I have emotion.”

Covington has built much of his public identity around provoking opponents, but Muhammad does not view ignoring that behavior as a competitive virtue. He would rather bring the hostility onto the mat.

Asked what people will learn when every weapon except wrestling disappears, Muhammad did not hesitate.

“Who has more heart and who has more balls,” he said. “I have it all.”

Muhammad has heard doubts throughout his career, particularly during the long winning streak that preceded his championship opportunity. Reaching the top did not provide personal validation because he said he never needed it. Instead, it confirmed something for the people who traveled alongside him.

“It was more proving to my team that we were right and that we belonged,” Muhammad said. “We were doing the right stuff, and we got to the top of the mountain.”

Being underestimated no longer irritates him, either. Muhammad has narrowed his focus to the opinions that matter.

“People are going to have their opinions,” he said. “They always want to see you lose. At the end of the day, my family wants to see me win. My team wants to see me win, and those are the only ones who motivate me.”

Burns enters RAF 13 facing a different kind of familiarity.

More than four years after Chimaev defeated him by unanimous decision in their bruising UFC 273 encounter, Burns will meet him again under a rule set that emphasizes one of Chimaev’s greatest strengths.

Burns knows exactly what will be coming.

“I know that he’s a freaking strong athlete,” Burns said. “He’s going to come forward, but I know he gets freaking tired. He wants to push at a crazy pace that is impossible to keep for the whole match.”

Burns expects the opening exchanges to be difficult. His plan is to survive Chimaev’s initial surge, recover quickly and then force him into the type of exhausting contest that can transform confidence into doubt.

“If I get a couple of good defenses, he’s going to be very afraid to get tired,” Burns said. “That’s when I’m going to make this guy really tired. It’s a tricky and dangerous strategy, but I do believe it can work.”

Their first meeting became an instant classic because neither man surrendered control willingly. Chimaev survived the most difficult fight of his career at the time, while Burns gained respect even in defeat.

That respect remains, but Burns does not expect it to make their reunion polite.

“We signed a bout agreement, we went for it and we left everything inside the cage,” Burns said. “I respect him, and I believe he respects me too. But we have six minutes to beat the crap out of each other under the rules.”

That mutual respect was visible near the end of the interview when Chimaev happened to walk past. Despite the physical battle awaiting them later that night, he stopped to greet Burns. The interaction was brief but noticeably cordial, with the two checking on each other and exchanging a friendly acknowledgment before Chimaev continued on his way.

It offered a telling contrast to what Burns had just described. Away from the mat, the former opponents could treat each other warmly. Once the match began, that friendliness would temporarily disappear.

Burns smiled at the thought of sharing a drink with Chimaev afterward, although he quickly offered a correction.

“I don’t drink,” he said. “We can have a smoothie after, for sure.”

The narrower RAF rule set requires Burns to suppress some of the instincts that helped make him one of MMA’s most dangerous Brazilian jiu-jitsu practitioners. Pulling guard is no longer an option, but he hinted that several less obvious pieces of his grappling background could still surface.

“I still can use a couple of jiu-jitsu tricks, and I will,” Burns said. “A couple little sweeps and little things that people have no idea about.”

Accepting the match was never about selecting the safest road. Burns has repeatedly found his greatest motivation when others expect him to fail.

“The challenge is always what gets me training,” Burns said. “Especially when I’m under the radar or underestimated. That motivates me the most.”

That made another meeting with Chimaev difficult to resist.

“When I signed with RAF, his name was not the first option,” Burns said. “But when his name came into play, I was like, ‘Oh, wow.’ That got me fired up. We were so good the first time that we had to run it back.”

Muhammad and Burns will enter the RAF ring with different opponents, strategies and histories. Their belief, however, is nearly identical.

Take away the striking. Remove the cage. Limit the weapons.

The pressure remains, and that is exactly where both men believe they are most dangerous.