Training for the biggest fight of your career is mentally taxing enough and for Jorge Masvidal he now has to wonder if the fight is even going to take place. As UFC President Dana White stated during a media scrum after the UFC On Versus 6 event this past Sunday, the UFC is in hot pursuit of Strikeforce Lightweight Gilbert Melendez and want him in the UFC ASAP.
There is one problem with that though. Melendez is scheduled to face Masvidal at the Strikeforce event scheduled for December 17th. White said he didn’t care if Melendez has another fight scheduled, he wants him in the UFC ASAP. To say its been a confusing couple days for Masvidal is an understatement.
“I’m still preparing for the fight with Gilbert, but it went from one day to another that our fight was for sure and I still think I’m pretty sure the fight is still on for sure,” Masvidal told us. “I keep hearing comments, I don’t get on the Internet too much but friends and you right now telling me that Dana wants him there before the end of the year to fight for the UFC. I guess he’d have two fights in December. I don’t understand unless they are going to do my bout and his bout there. I don’t know, I signed the bout agreement. I’m ready to go forth and kick his butt. I don’t know what’s exactly going on. I talked to my partner Dan (Lambert) and he said everything was good and we are going forth with the fight, so I really don’t understand.”
The question here is, has Masvidal or anyone from his camp talked to anyone at Zuffa and gotten a response to if the fight is still happening?
“Personally I haven’t talked to anybody from Zuffa one on one,” said Masvidal. “Dan (Lambert) talked to people from Zuffa and he said everything is good. I’m just waiting.”
In the case that Melendez does go the UFC and Masvidal doesn’t get the immediate invite, would he fight for the vacant title?
“At the end of the day, I just need to stay active and fight,” said Masvidal. “I don’t want to fight for a vacant title. I don’t want to fight anybody else other than Gil. He’s ranked number one lightweight in the world. He has a lot of people saying he’s the number one guy, so I want to fight him. It has nothing to do with the belt really. It’s nothing personal, I don’t dislike the guy or anything. He’s ranked number one, I want to fight him. So, if it isn’t him, it just won’t excite me that much. Obviously going from the number one guy to fighting whoever, just not as exciting. But whatever they would tell me to do, I’ll do.
Masvidal has some words he would like to Melendez.
“I hope your training hard man, I’m going to kick your ass.”
You can listen to the entire interview at sportstownchicago.com.
sure you will, if you focus 100% and think Masvidal is one of the best on that division