Jorge Masvidal hopes to fix his wrestling issues going forward.
Masvidal suffered a unanimous decision defeat to Colby Covington in their welterweight grudge match in the UFC 272 headliner last night.
“Gamebred” had his moments as he dropped Covington in the fourth round and did connect in various exchanges throughout.
However, he was too fatigued to capitalize as Covington took him down a number of times and controlled him on the ground much like their sparring days back in the day.
And as far as Masvidal was concerned, his wrestling was not up to par last night.
“I wrestled like sh*t,” Masvidal said at the post-fight press conference (via MMA Junkie). “I lost a lot of exchanges. If I were to won them, on a technical level, things could’ve gone a little bit differently if I made him expend more energy on certain takedowns. That first takedown I gave up, he took my back. He rode me pretty good. That got me pretty flat going into the next round. I felt like I won a lot of the exchanges. I felt like on the feet, I definitely did the more damage. But it’s a fight. I mean, sh*t, man.
“If I could’ve done it all over again, I would’ve gone to college and wrestling my ass off and got my grades up to be able to stuff all these guys up, then just keep it on the feet. I was just flat on the wrestling, brother.”
The setback was made even worse given Masvidal’s rivalry with Covington and the fact that he lost to him of all people.
But with that said, the BMF champion did give credit to “Chaos” for his wrestling ability in the best way that he could.
“To lose to a b*tch like that, all he does is talk about people’s kids, religion, nations,” Masvidal said. “Obviously, no one wants to lose to a coward like that. I felt like I lost the wrestling exchanges. The fight-fight, you know? Whatever. I know I did damage. I think I dropped him twice. It just sucks, man. F*cking flat on the wrestling. He jumped on, and he was able to take me down. There was one or two times, I felt him getting real tired on the takedowns and then all of a sudden he got that takedown, and I was stuffing the second and third attempts. The fourth one, he got me down. He’s got good control when he’s on top. … He’s a b*tch. The b*tch can wrestle, though.”
Jorge Masvidal Wants To Deal With Wrestlers
It is now three defeats in a row for Masvidal, who still hopes to become a UFC welterweight champion in the future.
If he is to do so, he needs to get back into title contention with a couple more wins. And with the likes of Leon Edwards, Gilbert Burns and Khamzat Chimaev — all of whom can wrestle — Masvidal has to make sure his wrestling is up to scratch if he is to ever claim UFC gold.
“If I fight another wrestler, I need to make sure I can deal with this thing,” Masvidal added. “It’s all been tough fights with me with the wrestlers. Thinking, ‘Is he going to shoot on me?’ so I don’t open up as much on the feet as I should. Then, I get in big scrambles and I get out-scrambled, so I need to fix the wrestling, man.”
It could be possible, but remains to be seen given that Masvidal is already 37 years of age and is one of the older fighters in the top 15.
