Jorge Masvidal recently went on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast. During his interview with Rogan, he mentioned that he still hasn’t fully mentally recovered from his devastating loss to Kamaru Usman, which saw ‘Gamebred’ be separated from consciousness for the first time in his career.
In April 2021, Kamaru Usman defended his belt against Jorge Masvidal in the first PPV back in front of crowds since the pandemic. In the second round of the first, Usman landed a shocking knockout blow to Masvidal, sending him to the shadow realm. Usman was the first man ever to knock Masvidal out.
After that fight, Masvidal wouldn’t return to the cage nearly a whole year later against Colby Covington in march 2022. As you might expect, Covington convincingly won that fight after wrestling Masvidal for five rounds. Covington then took Masvidal to court for many months, which put both men’s careers on hold after Masvidal attacked Covington in a restaurant.
Kamaru Usman Knockout Loss Still Haunts Jorge Masvidal
One of Rogan’s first questions was how did Masvidal feel about the knockout and how long he was out for:
“I took off eight to nine months, maybe even longer,” Masvidal said on the Joe Rogan Experience. “It was the first KO of my career, you know. They wanted to make sure my mind was right…
“I still haven’t got over it, brother. I still want to f*****g rip Usman’s f*****g brains out. Nothing personal, I still want to get back in there and do it to him. I’ve never been knocked out, and I’ve fought a lot. I’ve fought great strikers and they never even came close to knocking me out, Masvidal added. Usman is a great fighter, he can do a lot of things well. But, after fighting him the first time and getting his best shots in, I cut 20lbs of water and I took the fight on six days’ notice and I went to Abu Dhabi. I was like this guy will never hurt me. He hits like a b***h and this is the dude that knocks me out. And, I had five rounds with him. I think it was nine months since the first fight that he gained that kind of power. That was nuts to me. It was like unreal, unnatural.
Masvidal then went on to say that during the lead-up to the rematch, he didn’t respect Usman’s power. Masvidal’s reasoning behind the lack of respect was that he could withstand Usman’s best punches in the first fight despite cutting loads of water weight.
Masvidal Talks Lack of Respect Prior to Fight With Usman
“I always respect anybody who has two hands and two feet, it’s not like I’m doing the touch me in the chin and I’ll give a shot to take a shot,” Masvidal said. “It definitely caught me by surprise. When he started to load up, I kind of saw the back of his head so I thought for sure he is going to shoot so I started to drop my hands and midway I noticed it was a right hand. I tried to check-hook him. but it’s too late the right hand already penetrated the forcefield and took my ass out.”
Quotes via Middle Easy
Masvidal is scheduled to return in April as the co-main event at UFC 287 against Gilbert Burns. Burns is coming off an incredible win over Neil Magny in Brazil. This fight is a high-stakes, loser-leaves-town sort of fight. Ranked no.10 in the division, his title fight dreams are dependent on a win.
Featured image credits to Embed from Getty Images
