Masvidal may have physically healed up from the effects of getting knocked out by Usman in April 2021, but the moment still bothers him mentally.
Jorge Masvidal had quite the career resurgence in 2019, going 3-0 against Darren Till, Ben Askren, and Nate Diaz. He also became one of the UFC’s biggest stars in the process. Then he ran into a brick wall named Kamaru Usman, who handed him two welterweight title losses in a row.
The second loss was especially rough, with Usman knocking Masvidal out cold in one of the nastiest KOs of the year. In a new episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, “Gamebred” opened up on the effects of that loss and how he dug himself out of the mental hole it left him in.
“I took off eight to nine months, maybe even longer,” Jorge said. “It was the first KO of my career, you know. They wanted to make sure my mind was right.”
“I still haven’t got over it, brother. I still want to f—ing rip Usman’s f—ing brains out. Nothing personal, I still want to get back in there and do it to him. I’ve never been knocked out, and I’ve fought a lot. I’ve fought great strikers and they never even came close to knocking me out.
“Usman is a great fighter; he can do a lot of things well,” Masvidal added. “But after fighting him the first time and getting his best shots in, I took the fight on six days notice. I think it was nine months since the first fight that he gained that kind of power. That was nuts to me. It was like unreal, unnatural.”
After a five round grind-out against Usman at UFC 251, Masvidal entered the cage at UFC 261 seemingly contemptuous of his opponent’s striking. There were several moments where he dropped his hands to his waist, and while the knockout didn’t happen when he was stunting on “The Nigerian Nightmare,” it had fans suggesting he didn’t respect Usman’s abilities.
“I always respect anybody who has two hands and two feet,” Masvidal said, before adding “He definitely got me by surprise.”
“I’m not gonna lie, I went into like a dark place for a while because, like I said, I had never been knocked out, it was just f—ing nuts to me. It wasn’t like a you stopped it early. I knew in my heart of hearts that this guy knocked me out, and for me to think Usman is the one to knock me out, I never would’ve bet that this guy would’ve knocked me out. It affected me, bro, bad.”
Masvidal turned to videos of former professor of psychology Jordan Peterson to help him get out of the mental rut the loss caused him. It’s his hope he’ll be able to lock up a win over Gilbert Burns at UFC 287 on April 8th, and then see Peterson live they day after.
“I just listen to Jordan Peterson on YouTube. That’s my dude right there for many many years,” he said. “I haven’t gotten a chance [to meet him]. By coincidence, he’s in Florida on April 9. I’m doing everything in my power to make sure I’m there like right after my fight. I’m gonna go, he’s gonna have a conference… I gotta go. I just wanna sit in the crowd and listen to this dude.”
UFC 287 goes down from the Miami-Dade Arena in Miami, Florida. Also on the card: the highly anticipated second MMA fight between middleweight champ Alex Pereira and Israel Adesanya.