Jorge Masvidal still contemplates decision to take first UFC title fight: ‘I was just f—king hanging out’

Jorge Masvidal will ceaselessly go down in historical past as the primary Baddest Motherf—ker (BMF) champion.

The BMF title win led Masvidal to his first profession Final Preventing Championship (UFC) title struggle in July 2020. Sadly for “Gamebred,” the circumstances weren’t supreme for his conflict with the then-champion, Kamaru Usman, at UFC 251 in Abu Dhabi.

Usman was initially set to defend his belt in opposition to Gilbert Burns till the challenger contracted COVID-19 and was compelled out of the competition. Masvidal recalled negotiating for the title shot for some time earlier than the promotion turned to Burns, and he knew what he needed. It by no means got here to fruition till there was no different alternative on one week’s discover.

“Once I received the decision to struggle Usman on six days’ discover, me and the UFC had been going again [and forth] as a result of I needed extra pay-per-view cash,” Masvidal mentioned on the TimboSugar Present. “I needed an even bigger distribution on the pay-per-views that I used to be bringing in, and so they weren’t actually budging. They needed to offer me extra on this facet, however right here, we’re gonna should this and chop, chop.

“I’m like, ‘Nah, I don’t need that deal. If I usher in cash, I need to receives a commission cash,’” he continued. “If I promote 100,000 pay-per-views the don’t f—king give me s—t. If I promote 1,000,000 pay-per-views, I needed to get f—king paid.

“It got here to a halt on negotiations and I used to be like ah f—ok. I suppose it’s not meant to be,” Masvidal concluded.

A giant level of contingency for Masvidal was evaluating the chance to his first and solely Strikeforce title shot at Light-weight in opposition to Gilbert Melendez in December 2011. Masvidal claims he made $16,000 for the bout, which he misplaced through a unanimous choice.

Masvidal, 39, had all of the leverage after Burns fell out and needed to proper his wrongs from his previous expertise. In the end, the struggle end result was the identical and the Welterweight veteran nonetheless contemplates whether or not it was the correct transfer or not due to that.

“I need the identical deal I used to be asking you for however simply higher now,” Masvidal mentioned. “I received six days to do it and 20 kilos to go. So I f—king went to conflict with them, fought for every thing I may. I made extra money than I ever did in my complete profession as a result of I made positive every thing was proper and going ahead it stayed precisely the identical, belt or no belt. My pay-per-view threshold was excellent.

“I didn’t get the choice I needed within the struggle and that all the time stayed with me,” he continued. “Like, man, how about if I had educated these seven weeks like I used to be preventing for a title? It might have been fully completely different as a result of I actually wasn’t doing a lot. I used to be simply f—king hanging out.”

Regardless of the lopsided loss to Usman, Masvidal obtained a right away rematch and battled Usman once more at UFC 261 in April 2021. The result wound up worse than earlier than as he misplaced through second spherical knockout. Masvidal returns to motion for a boxing rematch in opposition to Nate Diaz on July 6, 2024.