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“So whatever, if they were to cough up that money I’d be in a hurry to get down there and show what I’m worth.”
Jorge Masvidal moved up to welterweight (170) due to weight cutting complications in 2015 but the UFC ‘BMF’ champ would be willing to cut down to lightweight (155) again if the UFC made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.
‘Gamebred’ said he would be open to a lightweight title bout with Khabib Nurmagomedov for the right price, claiming that the weight cut to 155 comes at a serious cost to his health.
“The moolah’s gonna talk, man,” Masvidal said on his official YouTube channel (via MMA Fighting). “155 is such a battle with my weight. Once I’m at around 172 to 173 pounds, I’m at around five percent body fat already, six percent body fat. So I just don’t have a lot of room to play with and still get to 155. It’s a lot of water, it’s always been a lot of water. That doesn’t leave me the night of the fight in the best shape that I could possibly be, like how I compete at 170 and have that explosion, I can explode a little bit more and for longer. At ‘55 it would be a little different.
“But that’s not to say I couldn’t win one and that I couldn’t make the weight. I would just have to be rewarded so motherf*cking handsomely for me to drop down to ‘55 and compete with anybody.”
“I would love to do it because I felt I never got my fair due shot at 155,” he added. “I beat a lot of top class competitors before I came to the UFC at 155. They never gave me a shot to fight a top-10 guy. It wasn’t until I started fighting at 170 they gave me top-5 and top-10 guys. I never got I felt my fair due shot at ‘55. I beat a lot of good guys when I was down there, in the UFC as well.
“So whatever, if they were to cough up that money I’d be in a hurry to get down there and show what I’m worth.”
It’s understandable why Masvidal drives a hard bargain, as the UFC veteran has completely reinvented himself at welterweight and is now one of the most talked about fighters on the UFC roster. Masvidal turned his career around in 2019 after notching three stoppage wins over Darren Till, Ben Askren and Nate Diaz.
The fan favorite was expected to challenge Kamaru Usman for official welterweight title in July but that bout appears to have lost momentum in recent weeks. If that fight doesn’t go ahead, a title fight versus Khabib could prove be lucrative alternative.