Jorge Masvidal has revealed his predictions for the fight between Conor McGregor and Donald Cerrone at UFC 246.
The pair will go head-to-head in Las Vegas on January 18 in a long-awaited return to the Octagon for McGregor.
Back on Track
‘Notorious’ has been absent from the UFC since his defeat to Khabib Nurmagomedov in October 2018.
But the Irishman recently revealed huge fight plans for 2020 as he aims to get his career back on track.
‘BMF’ title holder Masvidal has been linked heavily with a fight against Notorious, depending on the outcome of UFC 246.
The pair have been feuding for a number of weeks, with the Dubliner recently stating that he wants the BMF belt.
Masvidal responded accepting the call-out, and it’s looking increasingly likely that the pair will meet in the future.
Two Outcomes
And the American champion has now offered his verdict on McGregor’s return fight. He believes there are two possible outcomes when he faces ‘Cowboy’.
He claims the result depends entirely on the approach taken by Cerrone, who he defeated himself back in January 2017.
Speaking to ESPN, Masvidal said: “It can go many ways,”.
“Conor is great off the block. He’s phenomenal off the start.”
“‘Cowboy’ is a slow starter.”
“Conor has tremendous speed and timing in the beginning, good power, so I think he can catch him early.”
“If ‘Cowboy’ comes out to grapple like he has in the past with decent strikers and even good grapplers like Rick Story, who he was able to take down and create a lot of offense like that … if that ‘Cowboy’ comes out, he can mix things up real nice.”
“And then he can start to flow and get into his game of high kicks and punching and being tricky, like a dual threat to Conor.”
“If (Cerrone) just comes out to fight it out, I see Conor winning within the first two rounds.”
Big Plans
And should McGregor defeat Cerrone, it looks as though his 2020 plan will go ahead, meaning a match-up between Notorious and Gamebred might be just around the corner.
A rematch with Khabib Nurmagomedov and a fight with Justin Gaethje are also on the cards as McGregor looks to reinstate himself as the UFC’s best.
(Featured image source: Instagram/ Conor McGregor and Jorge Masvidal)