Main event winner Jorge Masvidal explained how he ended up in a fist fight with Leon Edwards following their bouts.
Over the last six months, the UFC has seen a disturbing rise in the number of outside the cage altercations going down between its fighters. The start of March saw new welterweight champ Kamaru Usman and Colby Covington shoving and swinging their way through a crowded Palms Casino buffet line.
And just two weeks later we have yet another incident at UFC Fight Night: Till vs. Masvidal in London.
So what happened? Jorge Masvidal was being interviewed backstage following his win over Darren Till (watch the brutal knockout here) when Yves Edwards entered the same area. Masvidal immediately made a beeline towards the British welterweight fighter, and when they got too close Masvidal exploded with a flurry of punches that landed on Edwards.
Here’s a longer two minute clip of the incident care of ESPN:
Dana White has responded not by blaming Masvidal but poor organization on the part of the UFC. As for Jorge, he explained his side of the situation with ESPN.
”I’m doing my interview and this hooligan comes by saying some stuff, like ‘July, get your ass kicked in July, July!’” Masvidal said. “I go ‘Maybe bro, whatever, because maybe I wanna kick your ass in April. Maybe I don’t wanna wait until July. Maybe I don’t want to fight you in a prize ring because you’re not worth the training camp, I’ll just fight you here because you’re a scrub.’ You know?”
Jorge @GamebredFighter Masvidal explains his altercation with ”hooligan” Leon Edwards (via @bokamotoespn) pic.twitter.com/bdQ9iU6uDn
— ESPN MMA (@espnmma) March 17, 2019
”So I tell him to just say it to my face like a man,” he continued. “You’re saying it and walking away? We’re both men, and as I’m walking to him I got my hands behind my back to signal to him that I’m not looking for problems. But he put his hands up like this and he walks towards me. Well … where I’m from if you do that you’re going to punch me in the face and that’s not going to happen.”
”You are what you are, you’re just a loser in life, man,” Masvidal finished. “You’re not going to get a hit off on me. So I had to give him the three piece with the soda and then just glide out of there, you know? And then some of his friends tried to sucker punch me, those guys did a big mistake.”
We’ll see how much of a mistake it was for Masvidal to get sucked into the extra-ciricular activities. The UFC just awarded him $100,000 in bonuses for his work at UFC: London. Now the big question is whether he’ll get to keep it.