Jorge Masvidal is open to making a return trip to lightweight class as he believes he wasn’t given the right opportunities when he competed at 155 pounds.
The Miami, Florida native kicked off his Ultimate Fighting Championship career in 2013 as a lightweight, where he recorded a 5-2 win-loss card in seven fights before moving up to 170-pound division.
Seven years after, Masvidal is now on the brink of earning the next welterweight title shot after scoring three massive wins in 2019 including a technical knockout victory against Nate Diaz to capture the one-and-done ‘baddest motherf***er’ belt.
Looking for a bigger challenge and a heftier paycheck for his next outing, the ‘BMF’ champ has been campaigning for a money fight with Conor McGregor to no avail as the UFC wants the Irishman to fight Khabib Nurmagomedov next.
Currently awaiting his next assignment, Masvidal welcomes the possibility of returning to lightweight class and take on higher rank opponents.
Fair Shot
Under one condition, ‘Gamebred’ is willing to do he horrendous weight cut to get his fair shot at 155 pounds.
“I would just have to be rewarded so mother(expletive) handsomely for me to drop down to ’55 and compete with anybody,” he said in a recent video uploaded to his YouTube Channel (transcript from MMA Junkie).
“But I would love to do it because I felt like I never got my fair due shot at 155.”
“I beat a lot of top-class competitors before I came into the UFC at 155; they never gave me a shot to fight a top-10 guy.
“It wasn’t until 170, they gave me top-10 and top-5 guys, so I never got, I felt, my fair due shot at ’55. I beat a lot of good guys when I was down there, in the UFC, as well.”
In A Hurry
While the weight cut would be a tough task for Masvidal, he is confident he would fair well against lightweight fighters, though not as explosive as he is at 170 pounds.
But he insisted the promotion has to give him the right money to drop back down at 155.
“The moolah is going to talk man; 155 is such a battle with my weight.”
“Once I’m somewhere around at 170-173 pounds, I’m at 5 percent body fat already, 6 percent body fat, so I don’t have a lot of room to play with to still get to 155.”
“It’s a lot of water. It’s always been a lot of water, and that doesn’t leave me the night of the fight in the best shape that I could possibly be in.”
“Like how I compete at 170, I have that explosion. I could explode a little bit more and for longer. At ’55, it would be a little different, but that’s not to say I couldn’t win one and that I couldn’t make the weight.”
“If they were to cop up that money, I’d be in a hurry to get down there and show what I’m worth.”
(Featured Image Source: Instagram/ Khabib Nurmagomedov and Jorge Masvidal)