UFC 251: Jorge Masvidal thinks Kamaru Usman mentally weak, ‘nowhere near as good as advertised’
- ‘He has 17 different personalities and I don’t know which one is going to turn up to fight,’ jokes Masvidal
- ‘There are other guys I would have said I don’t want to take it on six days. He’s the perfect guy’
Jorge Masvidal was eating barbecue at a friend’s Fourth of July party when he got the call to negotiate a new deal to save the UFC 251 main event.
He may have taken the fight on just six days’ notice, but don’t be fooled. As his American Top Team Teammate Dustin Poirier said, Masvidal “isn’t coming off the couch” to Fight Island in Abu Dhabi.
“At the end of the day it’s a fight, it’s not a math test, it’s not an SAT test, that I’m not maybe the best at,” Masvidal told the UFC’s virtual media day. “It’s what I’ve done since a child, my fascination since youth. So I just gotta go out and believe in myself and give it everything I got.
“There are other guys I would have said I don’t want to take it on six days. He’s the perfect guy to take it on six days. Weak minded. He has 17 different personalities and I don’t know which one is going to turn up to fight.”
Masvidal (35-13) had been set to fight UFC welterweight champion Usman (16-1) all year, but negotiations over pay broke down last month and new No 1-contender Gilbert Burns slid in to face his Sanford MMA teammate.
That went out of the window when Burns tested positive for coronavirus last weekend, and Masvidal suddenly had all the leverage he needed to get his shot at capping off a fairy tale run to the title following a stunning 2019 that saw him finish Darren Till, Ben Askren and Nate Diaz in some style.