Jorge Masvidal has mixed emotions about his first UFC title fight.
‘Gamebred’ was a top contender at lightweight and welterweight for years before putting together a run of knockouts that made him a superstar.
Darren Till, Ben Askren and Nate Diaz all suffered stoppage defeats against Masvidal, who had put himself in line for a shot at Kamaru Usman’s 170lb belt by July 2020.
Shockingly, Gilbert Burns got the call to face Usman at UFC 251 instead.
‘Durinho’ fell off the card due to illness before Masvidal agreed to step in and face Usman on six days’ notice after some intense negotiations with the UFC bosses.
The 39-year-old helped the show sell 1.3 million pay-per-views to become one of the most-watched events in UFC history.
Masvidal recently revealed that he made $5million for his first fight with Usman. Still, he regrets taking the bout as he had no time to prepare and suffered an inevitable unanimous decision defeat.
“It’s a regret, but also not a regret,” Masvidal said on Sean O’Malley’s podcast.
“When I got the call to fight [Kamaru] Usman on six days’ notice, me and the UFC had been going back because I wanted more pay-per-view money, I wanted a bigger distribution on the pay-per-views that I was bringing in.
“If I bring in money, I want to get paid money. If I sell 100,000 pay-per-views, then don’t give me s***, but I wanted to get f***ing paid.
“Then I had all of the chips on my side, because who is going to cut all this weight, six days, make weight and at the time I’m number one.
“So, they didn’t have any choice. I fought for everything I could, I made more money than I ever had in my career…but I didn’t get the decision I wanted in that fight.
“It would’ve been completely different [if it was seven weeks’ notice].”
Masvidal got an immediate rematch and was given more time to prepare to face Usman again, but it didn’t help him.
Usman scored a famous knockout win at UFC 261 in April 2021.
The MMA fan favourite suffered two more defeats before retiring from the sport last year, but he’s currently preparing for a boxing match on July 6.
A rematch in the ring with Diaz will make both men a bunch of money, and with plenty of time to prepare Masvidal should have no regrets after this one.
News Summary:
- Jorge Masvidal explains why he regrets taking UFC fight that made him $5million
- Check all news and articles from the latest Football updates.