Jorge Masvidal says he was considering leaving MMA before an extended reality-show appearance changed his mind and produced the blueprint for the run that took him to two UFC welterweight title fights. Masvidal revisited the turning point in a new career interview with Daniel Cormier.
The account connects a quiet stretch after Masvidal’s 2017 loss to Stephen Thompson with his 2019 return against Darren Till. Masvidal said he had declined to move backward in the rankings, stepped away from normal life for the show and used the isolation to audit 16 years of training and competition.
Strikeforce Built Masvidal’s Expectations
Masvidal first explained why his position before the break frustrated him. He remembered Strikeforce as a home for elite lightweights and Japan as an original career goal.
Strikeforce at the time, in my opinion, had some of the best 155-pounders in the world. And it was shortly proven after, as they started coming over and going to war with these guys. But they also had the Japanese guys. So I was always a little guy. My inspirations were to always fight in Japan first.
I started my career at 18, I turned professional, and I was averaging about three to four fights every year. So I managed to stay busy and decided, ‘Man, I want to go to Japan, fight the best over there, and then I'm going to come for the UFC and get as much money as I can.’ So I did that, and I ended up fighting for a couple organizations, and boom, I end up in Strikeforce.
Masvidal signed a six-fight Strikeforce deal in 2010 and continued his rise with a 2011 win in Columbus. He eventually challenged Gilbert Melendez for the Strikeforce lightweight title, then moved to the UFC after the promotion closed.
He believes the UFC did not initially treat his Strikeforce ranking as equal to those of several former colleagues.
Dude, they did me dirty. I'm so glad you brought that up. They did me so dirty in that regard. I went from being the number one contender, I lost to Gilbert in a close decision. I tore the ligaments in my metacarpal in the first match, so I couldn't throw my right hand, and it was still a great fight.
They brought me in to only fight guys who were right outside of the top 15. They wouldn't let me in that circle yet. The guys who were ranked under me in Strikeforce, like the number two, number three and number four guy, and guys that I had beat that were in that top-five ranking, they went on to fight guys like Jim Miller that were in the top five.
Masvidal also returned to the childhood promise that made a long career feel necessary. After seeing a UFC tournament prize, he told his mother that fighting could change their finances.
I found out four fights won $50,000. We weren't doing that good. So I told my mom, ‘Listen, I got this all figured out.’ She goes, ‘What are you talking about?’ I go, ‘This situation, everything's going to change overnight. I'm going to get in the cage. I'm going to fight four more guys. When I win, Mom, I get $50,000. We change the game.’
The complete interview segment is embedded below:
Isolation Produced A New Finishing Blueprint
After decisions against Demian Maia and Thompson, Masvidal said the promotion offered opponents below the position he wanted. A reality-show proposal arrived during that impasse. The format removed his phone, television, music and contact with home while contestants competed for basic comforts.
It was a mind change, a paradigm shift. I was in a reality show when it literally happened. This reality show, they took your phone away, TV away, music away, no contact with the outside world.
Long walks and time alone brought him close to a different life. Masvidal said opening a gym had become a real alternative because his fighting income still did not match the work.
I wasn't sure if I wanted to even go back to MMA. I've done so much, and the bills still don't make sense. Maybe I'll open up a gym. I was kind of like that. I ended up lasting like six months in the show because I got pretty good at the stuff.
The conclusion eventually changed. He decided that his career was unfinished and that the years already spent fighting could become a data set rather than a burden.
The same thing kept coming to my head: ‘I'm not done fighting. I'm not done fighting.’ I was 33 at the time. I was just praying, and that's it. It just hit me, and I was like, ‘Man, I want to fight, and I'm going to figure this out.’
I had 16 years of data, everything that I had done good and bad. I started seeing, ‘Okay, before this fight I stayed up late, I partied, did that. Well, I got a split decision. Okay, you know what? X that out.’ So I went like that and reverse engineered these 16 years of my career.
The new approach placed damage and finishes ahead of careful point fighting, especially against opponents whose grappling could decide rounds.
I know no matter what, especially with the wrestlers, which were a problem with me, guys like Demian Maia, I got to take them out. I got to create more openings. I got to use more power instead of being so technical. I got to finish guys. It's the first thing that's on my head, and the first game, the first thing for that was Till, to see how my blueprint held up. Thank the Lord I got the decision—I mean the KO.
The earlier record included a dominant win over K.J. Noons and the title opportunity against Melendez. Masvidal knocked out Till in London in March 2019, stopped Ben Askren with a five-second flying knee four months later and beat Nate Diaz for the BMF title that November. Those wins led to championship defeats against Kamaru Usman in 2020 and 2021.
Masvidal’s latest explanation makes clear that the title opportunities and his 2019 breakout might not have existed without the isolated period when he was seriously weighing whether to stop.
