“Gamebred” told reporters at a scrum in Abu Dhabi on Friday that he had a big cut to deal with to make his fight with welterweight champion Kamaru Usman official for UFC 251. Both fighters successfully hit the 170-pound mark and they will headline Saturday’s show.
“Twenty pounds in six days,” Masvidal said when asked how difficult it was to make weight. “That’s all I’m gonna say. It was rough. But I did it. I get sh*t done.”
The 48-fight veteran has never missed weight and this weekend was no different. He did have to strip down and make use of a towel, but when the weight was announced Masvidal was all smiles.
With that battle behind him, Masvidal is now completely focused on dethroning Usman and as far as that challenge goes, he is supremely confident that he can overcome it.
“The opponent in front of me is very tameable, so I never thought like that,” Masvidal said when asked if he had any doubts about taking this fight on short notice. “I’m hurting though, initially during the weight cut, but now it’s all behind me. I made the weight, I’ve already got liquids in me, food in me, so pretty soon it’ll be just party time.”
Masvidal said it’s not just important for him to beat Usman, but to do it in a certain way and he claimed he has “a special recipe” and “a lot of secret sauce” for fight night.
With Masvidal recently making headlines more for his displeasure with the UFC’s payouts than his title aspirations, his surprise short-notice booking caused a commotion as far as whether or not he found what he was looking for in his negotiations for the Usman bout. It’s difficult to imagine any fighter being able to follow the path that Masvidal has taken to stardom, but he offered what advice he could while explaining how he scored the opportunity he’d been hunting for.
“We’re gonna need a lot longer than five minutes for that answer, but I’ll give you a short one,” Masvidal said. “Stick to your guns, don’t let none of these devils and demons hold you down. I’ve been here for a while, it’s taken me a while, but I don’t let know oppressor get the better of me. If they didn’t come to the numbers that I wanted, I would have been right in Miami, Florida, sitting on my couch, eating sushi, playing video games. They came correct and that’s why I’m here. That’s the only thing I can tell young fighters coming up, know your value.
“A lot of the young guys just don’t know their value. It’s not their fault. I didn’t know my value when I was 19, 20 years old. Someone offered me $2,000 I’d kill a gorilla. It’s tough as these kids are coming up, but all I can tell them is know your value and stick to your guns.”
Told that the preliminary numbers for his matchup with Usman are trending in a highly positive direction, Masvidal had an even simpler explanation for that.
“You know why?,” Masvidal said. “‘Cause I’m on the motherfu**in’ card.”
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