‘He’s Gonna Surprise A Lot Of People’

The Bellator middleweight champ shares an update on Jorge Masvidal’s boxing comeback.

Jorge Masvidal’s training partner Johnny Eblen can’t wait for “Gamebred” to return to action in boxing.

Masvidal teased a comeback at the start of January when he tweeted ‘Unretired.’ Then rumors started swirling that he and Nate Diaz would box, a somewhat fitting conclusion to their BMF battle in 2019 that was ended on a cut. Nothing has been announced, but it’s certainly a money fight.

Now Jorge’s training partner and Bellator middleweight champ Johnny Eblen is giving us a little insight into Masvidal’s mindset.

“I think he misses it, and I’m glad he’s getting his feet wet again,” Eblen said in an interview with The AllStar. “Especially in boxing, I think it’s gonna be a great avenue for him to continuing his legacy and his journey in martial arts, and also just stay relevant, you know?”

“When you build such a big name and fall off the face of the earth — I mean, not that he did, but like, not being as active fight-wise, it’s not as exciting.”

“He has his fight promotion, which is doing really well,” Eblen added. He has a lot of things going on. I think him jumping back into fighting, especially in boxing, is gonna be huge because of his name and he’s gonna stay relevant.”

“And also, he’s gonna surprise a lot of people. That dude has hands, and he’s f—ing good, man. A lot of the problems he had in MMA was people wanted to take him down. Now we’re boxing, you can’t take anybody down. You gotta strike with the guy.”

We look forward to Masvidal’s inevitable turn to boxing, but hopefully it won’t happen too soon. Jorge is clearly enjoying the retired life. He showed up at the Super Bowl looking pretty portly in comparison to his usual fight shape.

As we’ve learned with Paddy Pimblett, it’s nothing a proper fight camp couldn’t fix. But it would be terrible to see an out of shape “Gamebred” step out of retirement for a money grab.