Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC
The UFC’s ‘BMF’ champion Jorge Masvidal thinks he’d do better against Kamaru Usman should they ever fight again.
At last night’s UFC 251, live from Yas Island, UAE, Kamaru Usman showed the world he had the beating of Jorge Masvidal. The UFC welterweight champion bullied his short notice opponent on route to a fairly easy to score unanimous decision victory.
At his post-fight press conference ‘Gamebred’ was under no illusions regarding who was the rightful champion.
“I’m not going to make no excuses. He was the better man tonight,” said Masvidal (h/t MMA Fighting). “There were some areas where I didn’t give him enough credit, and there were some areas I felt with a better training camp I could definitely surpass him. I think I showed a lot of my wrestling on six days’ notice that I’m not too easy to take down and to hold down on the ground.”
“I made a lot of mistakes,” continued Masvidal before admitting he got tired later on in the fight. “I didn’t feel my gas tank was the greatest.”
Masvidal cited a tough weight cut as one of the reasons for the poor gas tank and overall ‘sh—ty performance’ (his words). Despite outlining the odds against him—brought about by the short notice—Masvidal repeated that he wasn’t making excuses.
“He won fair and square. I’ll do whatever it takes to get back in front of that man and compete again and get my hand raised.”
While recognizing Usman as the superior welterweight on ‘Fight Island’ Masvidal stated that he thinks things might be different should they ever meet in the Octagon again.
“I’ve got a good formula in my head though on how to beat him the next time,” Masvidal said. “I thought I had the formula. Now I know the formula — it takes a lot of gas tank, a lot of conditioning, a lot more wrestling rounds with high level guys. So I definitely got a square root on how to beat this guy.”
Masvidal jetted into UFC 251 as a replacement for number one contender Gilbert Burns, who was pulled after testing positive for COVID-19. Before being halted by Usman, Masvidal was riding a three-fight winning streaks with highlight reel KOs of Darren Till and Ben Askren and a TKO (due to a cut) victory over Nate Diaz for the novelty BMF belt.
Before that streak Masvidal had a 9-6 record in UFC competition, since joining the company after the Strikeforce shutdown in 2013.