Jorge Masvidal Reflects on Kamaru Usman KO Loss

It's an exciting time for the Welterweight division too. You know, with you having that beef with Leon, and Leon now having retained the title, and they're talking about Kobe, but I feel like with a good showing against Gilbert, you skip the line. Yeah, for sure. And Leon wants it more than anything. He wants it more than anything. Just for the history that we have, and also we're going to sell the most paper views if me and him are in that cage. It'll sell a lot. It'll sell a lot. It'll be a big fight. It's going to be a gigantic fight. What did you think about the rematch, the rubber fight with Leon and Kamaru? Little lackluster, you know. And Usman, maybe like there was times where I didn't see him like stepping on the gas like he usually does, you know. And it might have been because he just took this fight too early. I always think that when a fighter gets knocked out, you really, you know, and I got this from like the old timers in boxing, you need to really let your brain and your confidence like heal and come back, you know. Because then you get back in and you get touched and you're like, whoa, I might get knocked out and you pull the brakes and you start like, you know, maybe second guessing yourself. So I think maybe he took it a little bit too early, you know, I do think that he's in a way better fighter than Leon in a lot of aspects, but Leon just has his number, it seems right now. Well, Leon was also super confident coming into that fight. You know, I feel like once a guy becomes the champion, they gain confidence and they gain ability because they just have this understanding of what they're capable of doing. And the fact that it was in England, it was... And he had the title and he knocked him out. Yeah, all the above. A lot of factors. You just don't know how guys are going to come back after his first KO loss. And it was a bad one, it was a brutal one. Usman was down for a bit. How long after the Kamaro fight did you take off? Oh, close to like eight to nine months, almost maybe even longer, you know. All my coaches wanted me. Plus, it was like the first KO of my career, you know. So more so on like, not my body was already healing my brain, but they wanted to make sure that my mind was right, you know. Yeah. How long did it take you to get over it? I still haven't got over it, brother. I want to fucking rip Usman's fucking brains out, you know. Nothing personal to that. I just want to get back in there and do it to him, you know. I've never been knocked out and I've fought a lot. You know, we were talking about earlier, Eaves Edwards, like I fought great strikers, you know, and they never even came close to knocking me out. And it's not the disroofs from him, but he's not. I don't put him in the league of one of these great strikers. He's a great fighter because he could do a lot of things well. But after fighting him the first time and getting his best shots and I cut 20 pounds of water and I took the fight in six day notice and I went to Abu Dhabi, I was like, bro, this guy will never hurt me. Like he hits like a bitch and then all of a sudden he's a dude that knocks me out. I had five rounds with him. So for in that, I think it was nine months since the first fight that he gained that type of power was just nuts to me. You know, it was like unreal, unnatural, you know, because I felt his fucking best punches in the first fight for five rounds and never hurt me, never like shook me up good, you know. And then boom, surprise hit in the second fight. So do you think it was a matter of you not respecting his power and on top of that, him just getting better? I always respect anybody has two hands and two feet. So it's not like I'm trying to do like touch me in the chin and I'll give a shot to take a shot. Definitely caught me by surprise when he started to load up. I kind of saw like the back of his head. So I thought for sure he's gonna shoot. So I started to like drop my hands in. I noticed like midway, oh, it's a right hand. I tried to check hook him, but it's too late already that the right hand already penetrated the force field and took my ass out, you know. Yeah, it's a moment that happens to many fighters and it defines who they are, how they bounce back from it. Yeah. You know? Oh, and I'm coming. I'm coming strong and I feel my mind after that fight, maybe I'm not gonna lie, I went into like a dark place for a while because like I said, I've never been knocked out. It was just fucking nuts to me. Like, bro, this guy's the one that fucking literally knocked me out. Like I was out cold. It wasn't like a, like you stopped it early or nothing. I know in my heart of hearts, this guy fucking knocked me out. And for me to think, well, someone's the one that knocked me out, I never would have betted that this guy would knock me out. So it affected me, bro, bad, you know what I'm saying? Do you ever go to a sports psychologist? I just listened to Jordan Peterson on YouTube, man. That's my dude right there for many, many years. I've never got to many. Have you ever met him? I haven't got a chance, but I'm actually, by coincidence, he's in Florida April 9th. And I'm like doing everything in my power to make sure that I'm there. Like right after my fight, I'm gonna go, he's gonna have a conference down in the- I'll connect you guys. Oh hell yeah. Yeah, yeah, I'll connect you guys. Oh yeah. For sure, he's a great guy. He's gonna be in Florida, so I was like, bro, I gotta go, I just wanna sit in the crowd and listen to this dude. I've been listening to him for years on like YouTube and stuff.