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Jorge Masvidal may be defeated, but he’s already planning to rise back up the ranks and beat Usman for the title in the future.
UFC 251 went down on Saturday night from Fight Island, aka Yas Island in Abu Dhabi. Headlining the card was a welterweight title fight between champion Kamaru Usman and Jorge Masvidal, a highly hyped fight that played out a bit anticlimactically with Usman controlling Masvidal up against the cage, forcing the striker to spend his time and energy fighting off endless takedowns. And while for the most part Masvidal managed to stay upright he never got the space to get rolling with his striking.
At the end of 25 minutes the judges gave the fight to Usman 50-45, 50-45, and 49-46 (watch the highlights here).
“I hate coming up short,” a disappointed Masvidal said at the post-event press conference. “I’m not going to make no excuses, he was the better man tonight. There was some areas where I didn’t give him enough credit, and some areas where 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 to easy to take down or hold down on the ground.”
“I made a lot of mistakes, I tried to fight in spots. I felt like my gas tank wasn’t in the greatest place. And he fought in better spots, right when I’d get loose and start to open up he was able to clinch and take me back into his world. So I’m not going to take anything away from him. He won fair and square. I’ll do anything it takes to get back in front of that man and compete and get my hand raised.”
As for when we might see Masvidal back in the cage?
“Since I moved up to 170 I haven’t had to cut more than eight or nine pounds and it’s something that when I left 155 I told myself I wouldn’t be doing,” Masvidal said. “So for the next fight I’ll make sure I’m back on schedule, I got barely any weight to cut and I’ll be feeling great whoever the opponent is. I don’t know if I’ll be coming back at the end of the year or early next year. I’m going to sit down with my management and figure that out. But whoever it is next year I just want to come back and get a stoppage and be in peak shape, have a six pack when I get out there. Look right, you know?”
After their #UFC251 fight was over, @USMAN84kg and @GamebredFighter spoke about running it back in the future pic.twitter.com/3zcl29jYLh
— ESPN MMA (@espnmma) July 12, 2020
“Right now I’m just very butthurt. I want to do some sprints, I want to hit a punching bag, I want to get on a treadmill. I want to take out my frustrations. I want to elevate my cardio to a new level. I know I can do more. A lot of people make excuses for me, six days notice. But it’s no excuse. Once you sign that dotted line, well you shouldn’t have signed that dotted line if you weren’t in the best shape ever to compete for a world title. I just feel like that. I just feel that … I should have been in better overall shape. So it’s just a matter of time before I get back in there.”
As for who he might face next, Masvidal refused to give a name. But he did make it clear he had no interest in fighting former friend and training partner Colby Covington.
“The fragile guy with the MAGA hat? Definitely not him,” Masvidal said. “because he got finished by this guy with a full training camp. He had like twelve weeks and he got finished so I think that guy is below me by a lot. Six days notice and I was nowhere near getting hurt or getting put out. The gas tank wasn’t the best but I wasn’t going anywhere as far as damage goes, everybody could see that. So definitely not that punk. Leon Edwards? I dunno. If the numbers make sense, whoever it is, if the numbers make sense and it gets me closer to the title.”
With his first hand experience at UFC 251 and a full camp, Masvidal sounded convinced he could beat Usman if given another opportunity.
“I got a good formula in my head on how to beat him the next time,” he 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 of wrestling rounds with high level guys. So I definitely got a square root on how to beat this guy.”