MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Resume Review: Jorge Masvidal's Path to the Kamaru Usman Rematch

Episode Date: April 21, 2021

(00:00:30) - PRE-UFC RUN (00:11:32) - Tim Means (00:16:45) - Michael Chiesa (00:21:47) - Rustam Khabilov (00:27:22) - Pat Healy (00:30:29) - Daron Cruickshank (00:33:37) - James Krause (00:36:45) - Al Iaquinta (00:43:50) - Cezar Ferreira (00:46:51) - Benson Henderson (00:51:37) - Lorenz Larkin (00:58:12) - Ross Pearson (01:00:55) - Jake Ellenberger (01:02:53) - Donald Cerrone (01:08:33) - Demian Maia (01:16:30) - Stephen Thompson (01:28:11) - Darren Till (01:35:26) - Ben Askren (01:42:00) - Nate Diaz (01:47:49) - Kamaru Usman --------------------------- 'Morning Kombat’ is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Bullhorn and wherever else you listen to podcasts.    For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit: store.sho.com   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat  To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

He returns to Florida for their first show with fans basically since the pandemic. And in that main event, Jorge Masvidal for the second time in as many fights for him, will try to defeat Kamaru Usman to become the UFC welterweight champion. But before he gets to that point, we got to look back in time a little bit. Hello everyone and welcome to Jorge Masvidal's resume review right here on Morning Combat. I am just but one half, though, of your hosting duo for today. My name is Luke Thomas, and both of us are from CBS Sports. The other of us, I mean, is Brian Campbell.

Mr. Campbell, are you ready for the curse to continue, so to speak? Thank you for that awkward yet sincere introduction, Luke. I wanted to ask you, due to your producer credit in this show and your decision, hey, let's ring resume review Jorge Masvidal. Are you trying to prove to people that by doing a 3-1 underdog, this means the streak is real? I mean, the curse of the ring resume, it's real, Luke. It's going to be real Saturday. All right.

Yeah. Listen, the losing ways of the folks that we pick for this may continue. But if you're asking why we picked it, I'll just peel back the curtain a little bit. We were debating, do we pick Kamaru or do we pick Jorge Masvidal for this? And Kamaru is the champion. And usually we focus on somebody who is the champion in that case. But for this one, it's a little bit different because Kamaru's still kind of building his career. And Jorge, if he wins, would still be building his career,

win or lose, I suppose. But he's done a lot. And if he doesn't win this title, I'm not going to say there's never a chance of fighting a title again, but this does feel to me, Brian Campbell, pretty pivotal moment in the career of Jorge Masvidal. It is. There's almost a referendum in a way in this fight,

which is a little bit unfair to say, but let's remember, Masvidal is 36. You don't get a third chance at things like this. There was the excuse of the short camp when they met last July. Now he's going to be Usman for the title, a full camp, no excuses. So it is a good time to look back back not only at what we learned, Luke, and how that might inform this fight through Masvidal's very unorthodox run to this point, but also from the standpoint of that remarkable turnaround in 2019

and becoming a household name. You could argue that he'll lose a lot of that if he loses this fight on Saturday night. No doubt about it. So let's get into it here. UFC, as I mentioned, UFC 261, welterweight title fight at the top. And we're going to focus our attention on Jorge Masvidal. BC, I was thinking about his career a little bit. First of all, there's sort of two things that stand out to me about it. Number one, one of the more appropriate nicknames. If you guys don't know what game bread means, I actually didn't know it until I read

one of Sam Sheridan's book, but it actually comes from dog fighting, which is not the greatest, but it's just the reality of things. There's a term called gameness. In fact, there used to be a ghee company called gameness. They may still be around, but gameness is defined as pursuit of the fight despite the physical consequences. Gameness is something that dog fighters look for in dogs. Obviously, the ones who have more gameness tend to do quite well. And if a dog has gameness is something that dog fighters look for in dogs obviously the ones who have more gameness tend to do quite well and if a dog has gameness it is said to be dot dot dot game bread that is where his nickname comes from because you see i was gonna say that there were three stages to his career the stage of sort of on the outside weird random promotions as everyone's trying to compete with the u post-boom.

And then there's the Strikeforce component. And then there's the UFC component. And that's true insofar as his professional record is concerned. But let us not forget, this guy had only been fighting since 18 professionally, been fighting in the streets in Miami as part of that whole Kimbo Slice circuit long before that. There are actually four stages to his career, are there not? There are.

Certainly before UFC, the bulk of his UFC career, which had equal highs and lows, and then, of course, the turn to stardom in title contention in 2019 and the run that he's currently on. Is this the end of that run? Well, we're going to find out on Saturday. But, Luke, what I love most about Reserve Review at its core is look, like there's times that you forget

certain parts of somebody's rise and fall and rise again. There's times where you look back and go, you know what, I didn't really pay attention to that fight. It may have been on the screen when I was watching an undercard, but I didn't learn from it what I was supposed to. And I think most importantly, Luke, sometimes we gain certain narratives that we believe and we spout out on podcasts for years.

You know, when you go back and are tasked with watching 12 consecutive Jorge Masvidal fights or whatever I did this morning to prepare for this, you realize some things, Luke. Some of your narratives may have been incorrect or over blemished along the way. So while it's easy to say, okay, how many eras of Masvidal's career was it? Three. I found that Luke,

I almost want to say that his career is so unique, meaning he was more technically sound and closer to title shots than I realized at certain peaks of his career. And I think maybe I was unjustly wrong in saying before his 2019 turned to fame was journeyman the correct term it's an insulting term I think he was a lot closer to who he became in 2019 at certain points than I realized in retrospect looking back so it was good to get some of that and I think the unique highs and lows of his career is basically me saying Luke yeah we can say there's three

eras of his career but it's really just one wild one if you really think about it, because it's been very unique. He finally figured out how great he can be late in his career, but Luke, he was pretty damn close a couple times. Yeah, 36 years old, made his pro debut in 2003. 2003, one year after I, the gray-haired monster, graduated college, this guy made his pro debut. He has fought on every kind of show you can imagine from regional shows. AFC was a big promotion in Florida at the time in which it was around. He fought on Bodog Fight. Actually, had some good fights on Bodog Fight. He beat Keith Wisniewski at the time, was a big name. Yves Edwards was probably his biggest win from that portion of his career. He fought for Strikeforce six times, including at the Playboy Mansion,

including in a title fight against Gilbert Melendez. BC, here's one thing I was thinking about with Masvidal before we start on the UFC portion of his career, although this would include the UFC portion too. How many times did you go through a fight where he lost, and in the end you see this look of can't believe I'm here again on the face of Jorge Masvidal you saw it in the Melendez fight you saw it in the particularly in the Iaquinta fight to an extent even in the

Wonderboy fight you could do a highlight of how many times he was in a split decision or a kind of a close fight and it just didn't go his way and and how again how close he seemed to be from winning those fights which maybe would have elevated him to the level he ended up becoming earlier it's an interesting run look I want to start off by asking you this because we are focusing on his UFC run for the purpose of this video yet to your point he made a lot of headlines before that I mean he's got an early sort of minor league win over Joe Lozon in the beginning when did you first know about Jorge Maswell for me it was in the midst of that strike force run the loss to Paul Daly the win over KJ Nunes and eventually of

course led to that Gilbert Melendez title shot when did Jorge Maswell become something to you he became something to me when the Eves Edwards fight so I actually watched Bodog pretty intensely at the time I have all of their DVDs they're weird because there's no sound there's like very little sound of what's happening in the k or i should say the ring when they competed so when he beat eves edwards back in 2007 that was like a very big deal um and it was very very surprising but i didn't think a whole lot beyond that because he had some ups and he had some downs he would get stopped by Rodrigo damn and then you know you're like reminded of him when he had that Toby Imada loss in Bellator Bellator 5 all the way back in May of 2009 he got inverted triangle to

put to sleep and that whole thing went viral at the I mean that was a huge viral moment for Toby Imada all the way back then. So really, I was kind of aware of him early. And you'll notice this too, BC. You hear this consistent thread in the commentary. Every time he shows up about how everyone thinks he's super talented, he can box, he can wrestle, he's been doing this forever, he's got good submissions,

they always heap praise on him as the guy kind of next to the guy, right? He could give the really good ones trouble and they respected him, but he had a lot of trouble crossing that finish line for big portions of his career. To that point, Luke, I was surprised in restarting this project, going from fight one in the UFC, which we're going to get to in a second, how much he seemed to be a finished product right in the beginning of his UFC career coming off of the strike force run where maybe in hindsight, I didn't remember that, which is sort of interesting.

And also look like, man, he's been, I can't say that enough. He's been pretty darn close to putting things together. And I think at times Luke fighters can fall into a run. And I think for Jorge, he had a long run of being a mid card or even lower mid card guy where they become just a name or maybe hey I watched him in that one fight where he got a knockout but sometimes you don't give the full attention to somebody that maybe they deserve and you know he was a much more of a finished product coming in and I think that that

you give credit to that for his journey of the world almost in any alvarez type run where it's like he fought in freaking shark fights bodog that one bellator stop you mentioned a strong strike force run that instead of his 2019 run being rags to riches right journeyman to title contender it was almost more biz pingian in a way mich Michael Bisping, where, you know, was able to be a certain level of opponent consistently, but the inconsistencies came when he tried to step up, whether it's against guys with higher technique or whatever, became his Achilles heel. But I give him a lot of credit for being a lot more well-rounded than I

remembered. So there you have it. That's basically an overview of how we feel about his career generally as I mentioned fought six times for Strikeforce but that was all kind of broken up because he fought for Sengoku had some good wins over there uh including the Satoru Kiraoka fight which was a nice win but he by the time he made his UFC debut in I mean he didn't make his UFC debut until April of 2013 he's only been in the UFC for seven years. That's not really that long. Obviously Adesanya did a resume review. We did one earlier for him, but he became champion pretty quickly. So that made a little bit more sense. But by the time he made his debut BC in

UFC, he already had 30 fights. He went into the Tim Means fight at 23 and 7, 30 of those. And that doesn't include street fights that no one counted that doesn't include actual street fights that aren't part of the record he is probably the most experienced guy for a UFC debutant because even Adesanya who we talked about BC yes he had a lot of competitive experience in kickboxing and in boxing a ton of it but he was still kind of coming into his own as a fighter and yes we're going to talk about the growth here in just a second, but he also might be the most seasoned for a UFC debutant that we have discussed at any point. Am I right about that?

Yeah, certainly. He came in and made a monster statement and a monster splash here, but 27 years old to your point, Masvidal at this debut, April 20th, 2013fc on fox and this became a theme luke horny masvidal was a ufc on fox type of fighter for a very long run in this career this fight was prelims prelims on this fight prelims absolutely in san jose which you know was strike force territory before this uh benson henderson g Henderson Gilbert Melendez in that main event but a three-round lightweight fight against Tim Means uh okay so let's go back any strong

impressions about the debut I actually liked going back and looking at this this was kind of the fight that Jorge Masvidal uses accumulative accumulatively to get praise yeah he would do well against the Gilbert Melendez's up to this point, but he kind of never got over the hump. But the other tough guys who would give the really good ones push, Jorge was really good at beating them. We'll talk about the James Kraus fight and some other ones,

but this was that kind of one where you're like, okay, you beat a guy like Timmy, and especially back in 2013 when he was much less weathered, this was a solid win. Any impressions you drew from this beyond merely his placement on the card and so the record he had before the debut? Yeah, I tried to write down for each fight, you know, what did I learn about him, where he fit in in the particular, you know, weight class at that moment? Look, Horry Masveld showed a ton, again, surprising for me in hindsight, a ton of not only technical prowess

against a very crafty and awkward guy in team means a guy with long arms who can come in with lead elbows that are sort of blinded by his movement can do a lot of sort of uh let's say unorthodox things which we saw here luke i mean he cut masvidal with an up kick with elbows from his back he did a lot of that weirdness but i not only learned that you know in hindsight this was a for 27 old, the guy in Masvidal who really started was our, I had already realized, and maybe that happened through the loss to Gil Melendez for the title in Strikeforce that he needed to be just as technical as he was aggressive and all the things that he sort of became his, his casual fan calling card in 2019, when he made that leap so technical technical but so patient luke we would learn in

this fight just as we would learn and let's say the four five and six that would follow that masvidal's chin in fact there were times when the ufc announcer said he almost uses it as part of his defense because he knows it's so good it is so strong and rock solid yes he'll do the smile at his opponent a lot when they catch him flush, which we always hear the announcers instantly jump in and be like, he smiled because it hurt him. Well, he did. But this is Masvidal with a rock-solid chin. But, Luke, the patience to pull off a game plan here.

This was no easy fight in hindsight, and he sort of had the answer for means at every turn. He did, and also the takedowns were sort of a key part of what happened here as well, scoring three of four in in the second. Now it didn't end up costing him, but that kind of thing was a hallmark of his career, either keeping it close and never getting it over or getting ahead and then letting everyone else catch up in the end still didn't cost him here. He wins, but the numbers say this is a consistent pattern through a big part of his

career. I'm glad you called that out because if you rewatch this fight, you'll notice the end of round three, Tim means reversed him on the ground, actually went to full mount for a second and essentially closed the fight landing some pretty vicious ground and pound. And it's almost as if, if you asked me, why did Jorge Masvidal have so many split decision losses and so many close fights, he allowed too many big moments to his opponents, Luke. And was that a factor in your eyes of, you know, unable to focus for long stretches, relying too much on his chin, where sometimes the moment went a little bit too far, didn't put him in trouble to lose the fight

in terms of a stoppage. But I think that you saw judges tending to bring his opponent back in a lot of 29, 28s in either direction in a lot of 29 28s in either direction a lot of these fights because he would yield a lot of big moments and it's not because of reckless defense Luke it seemed to be something else missing there I think he was very confident in his skills maybe too confident I think he was too confident in what he had showed to the judges without realizing oh I think I've done enough doesn't matter if you think you've done enough. You almost have to do, I'm not going to say too much, but there's going to be a gap between what you think is enough and what a judge might. It just feels to me like he knew he was the natural fighter.

I think he's always viewed other guys, not all of them, but some guys as pretenders. And, you know, if they get a little bit here or there, oh, it's obvious who's the better one. He kind of just relied a little bit on how he felt about, it's obvious who's the better one. He kind of just relied a little bit on how he felt about himself internally rather than just doing the homework. Just do the homework. Do all the things you're supposed to do throughout the course of the fight,

and the best will happen for you, either via stoppage or via a win. In this case, it didn't cost him, but you can see those little patterns emerge here with him saying, oh, yeah, you know, it's no big deal. I'll let this guy back in a little bit late. I think that's to me a big part of it. And also we'll talk about the epiphany he had later in his career about just kind of getting after it a little bit.

You'll see a lot of times you go through these fights, he is putting it on guys and then he'll just stop, you know, just stop because he just lets it go. And it's like, dude, this was, this was your chance to press the gas. So it's part of that. All right. So now we get to his first stoppage. We fast forward a little bit later that year. We're now in July of 2013. He takes on Michael Chiesa. Michael Chiesa at this time was still a welterweight.

He was coming off of the Ultimate Fighter. Prior to losing to Masvidal, he had beaten Aliyah Quinta in the finale for the Ultimate Fighter and Anton Quivivana which at the time was a pretty good name he goes in against jorge masvidal and drops him in the first round bc but in the end the talent of masvidal shown out what's your big takeaway from this fight first of all this was a much more fun fight than i ever remembered luke in fact i don't even know if i did remember this fight when it first happened. It was sort of buried on the Fox prelim cards, Demetrius Johnson and John Moraga on the main event there in Seattle. But what's interesting is Chiesa coming in unbeaten at 9-0, the tough championship that you mentioned,

and Luke fighting in essentially his own backyard here in the state of Washington. This was really great to see because this was a very confident, well-bearded, long-haired Chiesa who had never tasted defeat and really was ready to put it on both with the striking and then obviously on the ground there. But you know what I ended up learning from Masvidal who would go on to score a second round finish via darts choke here is this was the first time Luke, and again, I was surprised it happened this early, he looked like a future title contender. This was a great performance from Jorge Masvidal. His ability to control on the ground against a guy known for his ground game in Chiesa

was very strong in terms of how he matched that. Yes, he's showing his chin again. He gets rocked, but he gets right back up as he tends to do often. And most importantly, Luke, I think his IQ. This was the first time in watching this where it's sort of like this guy is he's well more schooled than you might guess in interviewing him and thinking about him. But that's been a big part of him. He needed like we're going to talk about a lot of the split decision losses and the heartbreak to maybe bring out the animal in him, but he had sort of the top end IQ early on here. It's weird, Luke, that he would lose that IQ at times. There were lapses that would develop,

but early on 2013, it's a very strong ass performance from a guy who looks ready to contend for that 155 belt. And also, I think heading into, we'll get to it a little bit later, but heading into, I want to say the Aya Quinta fight Jorge had been dropped in like three of his last four fights he got dropped in this one so two things you tend to notice with Jorge one is that he'll at times I don't want to call it

coasting although maybe that's kind of what it is but you know not give the fight let's say his full effort in some kind of way and the other one one is, dude, he gets like hurt a lot. He got dropped in the till fight. We'll talk about that later, but he gets up again. It's not that he's not hittable. It's that he's a, the best way for me to describe Jorge Masvidal at this stage of his career, although even now a little bit, he was a,

he was the smartest junkyard dog. You know, it wasn't that the junkyard dogs got scratches on his face and maybe a tooth chipped and blah blah he took his licks it just was never enough to deter him in the end even if he didn't get his hand raised um and in fact might have motivated him in certain cases so in this one taking on a guy like uh kiesa did well through the first round and then just came out and poured it on him in the second,

locking up the D'Arce choke. There was a little bit of a struggle as Jorge had to kind of finish it, but it was, and by the way, set it up with the three-quarter stack, so he was kind of telegraphing the choke, and still Chiesa couldn't get out of it. That's when you know you've got a very commanding operator in the cage. Yeah, and it was a great walk-off win because the choke sort of happened with, what, a second left to go in that second round.

But I think, in addition to everything that we said right there, this was the first time Masvidal really committing to body punches, Luke, which was a big thing for him to wear down. Right, that left him to the liver. Kiyasa opened round two still a ball of fire, but by the end of round two, he sort of

just collapsed from the pressure, and I think that was the body shots adding up there and I think one more thing about Masvidal's chin and his ability to get hurt I think it works in his favor because he can get up from a flash knockdown so quick because it gives his opponents a jolt of confidence which sometimes can allow them to lower their own guard he's never typically hurt too bad in those situations normally he bounces right back up ready to fire back and i think what that can do for him is turn a fight into a fight quicker against more patient opponents so it can end up working to his advantage in some cases this is a good point yeah when he gets rocked it's not like he gets his head snapped back and he's kind of dazed.

It's a lot of times either a semi-flash or it just off-balances him. He usually has his wherewithal as he goes down, and you're right, it kind of lights a fire under him underneath. Still, this fight with Chiesa was the main event on the prelims, so now we move on to November 6 2013 his third fight in 2013 for the UFC and he took on Rustam Khabibov it is so funny now man Chiesa is surging obviously um you know upper weight class and whatnot but there's a lot of guys he's lost to you know like if he had a rematch with Melendez, if he had a rematch with Habilov,

would you pick any of these guys to beat him now? I mean, obviously Melendez went down to 145 and is basically retired or whatever, but no, never. You would never, ever pick these guys to beat him, but still Habilov wins unanimous decision. And the score is BC 30, 27, 29, 28. I had it 29, 28, but honestly, can I complain about a I complain about 30 27 no and this was the key he got bumped up to the main card on this one Fox Sports 1 and it just didn't go his way why so the you know he got humbled to a certain degree here for as great as that Chiesa win was and by the way I'd love to see a rematch Masvidal Chiesa at Walter Waite today you know win or lose here for Masvidal on Saturday.

Still time for that because that first fight was so fun. But in this one against Khabibov, this is the beginning of sort of the peaks and valleys we see with Masvidal. I think in the end here, Luke, you know, he had the great chin again, but he found out there's levels to technique. And I think the first couple fights here in the UFC run for Masvidal, again, he's more technical than I remembered. I'm surprised by

that but the flaw in that is that he's also not active enough Luke this became a consistent thread throughout some of these losses where you know he he low it falls him falls into the counter puncher role too willingly and when you do that you're looking to land a big shot you're looking to make a statement and the fight but if you have somebody across from you who can equal you in the key categories, and in this case, Hobby Love could equal him on the ground, was more technical than him. And oh, by the way, landed a huge overhand right in the opening seconds, which let Masvidal know, like, you know, I can pump fake a shot attempt and land the big one, too. I'm as equal or better than you in these categories.

It didn't turn Masvidal into the animal that maybe 2019 turned him into. It turned him more into, I'm going to follow you around. I'm going to play it kind of safe here. And I didn't like that, Luke. He took the loss. He had to learn from it, but it's interesting to look back on here. He looked bewildered in basically every category. And here's the other thing you need to think about, and this is why it's important. It wasn't like Khabalov was super successful with the takedowns. In fact, not at all. He whiffed on 80% of them.

They only credit him with two of 10 BC, but this is the trick. Khabalov went 0 for 2 in the first on takedowns, one for three in the second, and then one for five, just two. He surrendered. Jorge Masvidal has very good takedown defense, but one thing that we saw in this contest, which we have kind of seen throughout his career, it's not that he gets overwhelmed. Demian Maya didn't submit him. Demian Maya gets everybody's back, but he didn't submit him. Jorge Masvidal didn't submit him Demi Amaya gets everybody's back but he didn't submit him Jorge Masvidal didn't get utterly controlled by by Rustam Habilov but the guys that can press him against the fence and kind of really spam him with takedown attempts he has tended to struggle with that you saw it against Kamaru Usman the first time they fought he didn't surrender a ton of takedowns it didn't

matter Rustam Habilov has kind of shown this has been one lingering issue. And this was the first time in the UFC, you got a real clear picture of that. And even worse than what that does, right? What that does over time is Masvidal gives up his gas tank, spending all his time defending the takedown. But I think even more than that, Luke, it takes him from an offensive mindset, which again, was the reason why he's where he is right now against kamar usman in a rematch for the title right just as much as his celebrity takeover and puts him in a defensive mindset and when he's already countering too much not taking the lead with his jab and now he's worried too much defensively you're not going to get the best of mazda at all and then we have to

give hobby love credit the right hand that hurt him in round one that's one of those right hands that sort of gives the judges you know well who landed the bigger shot that round it was this guy and how about that spinning head kick I don't know if that was a wheel kick I don't know what the hell that was but it dropped Mazovidol in a flash and uh you know Jabilov jumped on his back so that visual to the judges that's that's a bookend two moments there Mazovidol is not going to come back from that also you the judges that's that's a bookend two moments there Masvidal is not going to come back from that also you know normally when we're this far into a resume review we're talking about how the press had perceived him or what the narrative was after you have to understand at this stage of Masvidal's career again he had people's respect that was never

really his issue varying degrees of it I suppose but you know if you asked other fighters other media hey is Jorge Masvidal a good fighter you were always going to get the answer like yeah he's actually really good but then it would kind of stop there there was no arc there was no where does he fit in this division there was no um what's you know what does it mean that he won or lost this contest he was just kind of I hate to say it at this stage in his career bc he was more than just a guy but not a whole lot more not a whole there was no big media narrative about him and that's why again it's fun to do this because it's easy to miss these fights it's easy to when you're on the prelims when you're stuck on ufc on fox in a fight that's not featured the expert media critics they know who

you are they know maybe your record isn't as good as you actually are as a fighter, but it's also easy to just miss it as a filthy cash watching fights going, Oh, that's Masvidal. You know, he, he hasn't really done enough to give me, to force me to take notice. The Kiesa sub again, was it eye-opener? This was a step back in the loss. And now we head in to Luke. He's got a few of these. The Pat Healy fight is next, April 19th, 2014. Another UFC on Fox card. This one in Orlando, Verdum, Travis Brown in the main event. He's got a lot of these.

Well, you know, he won the fight, but he didn't really look great in winning it. And nothing really happened in the fight. And yes, you need these type of wins to put together two, three fight win streaks to get you into title picture but maybe in hindsight these are the fights he should have been knocking guys like this out to get our attention earlier in the run yeah and here's the thing it's like he lost to have a law for a lot of reasons the wrestling spamming being one of them it looked

to me like you know maybe the UFC was just trying to find a pair that made sense he was in Florida by the way back to the prelims on this card it should be noted um middle of the prelims not the very very end but still on the prelims and it's interesting Pat Healy won for seven and takedown attempts in the first round one for five in the second and then over two and then Masvidal took him down the one clear benefit of this fight to me BC is that yes it is true Masvidal can't quite be himself and has oftentimes given away rounds or even fights by virtue of how much the opponent has spammed the attack on him but he also showed there could be limits to that too Masvidal is good enough where if Pat Healy his big claim

to fame at this time was used with a good team he was huge for the weight class he actually gave Khabib a little bit of trouble a little a little bit by virtue of just his size well here's the thing he could wrestle MMA style and he was he cut an enormous amount of weight so just by virtue of that he was a hard person to handle but what Masvidal showed here was championship ability no not necessarily but he wasn't always going to be overcome by somebody who was just a hard-nosed wrestler in his face he had enough slickness and well-roundedness to pass a test like this well the reason why he won this fight Luke is because he had those

technical advantages and he showed it but he didn't take really any chances in a good way. He also allowed Pat Healy, who again was largely ineffective in his aggression. And maybe a lot of that is because Masvidal's defense is a lot more sound again, than maybe we remember or give him credit for, but you're still seeing the visual of Pat Healy, walking him down,

pushing him against the fence and letting off some kind of offense. The offense isn't landing. It's not even heavy shots, Luke. It's getting smothered. But again, it's giving you the visual of why are you allowing this guy, even if he's bigger than you to have these types of moments and to fight his fight. I think this is still a problem in Masvidal's rise. Now this fight's in Orlando, close to Miami to your point. He gets a big crowd pop Masvidal also a no open depth as a southpaw which he doesn't typically do and I I don't remember him doing it again right there but uh you know he'll switch it up but you're right opening no he overcame the slow

relentless mauling I thought he landed a nice spinning head kick in round two and in the end you know he used his speed and poise but unspectacular move the chains that's what it is so then we move on now to this will be a second fight of 2014 bc again we're back to the ufc on fox scenario this one at the sap center back in san jose july 26 of 2014 and he takes on darren cruxshank now where was cruxshank heading into this contest prior to fighting j Jorge Masvidal, let's see. He had been on a two-fight win streak beating Mike Rio, who was also from that season of The Ultimate Fighter, and then Eric Koch, a Duke Rufus product.

In fact, he had TKO'd both. One with a wheel kick and then punches, and then the other one with a head kick and punches. So he was coming in hot. He was coming in at one of the better spots in his career. And I will say this Jorge back to the prelims but he's the main event of the prelims this one aired on Fox he wins 29 28 29 28 and then 29 27 BC what's the story of the Masvidal-Kruxschenk fight so what I wrote down what did Masvidal

teach me he's good but he's still kind of ordinary. He certainly, I'm thinking a regression from what we saw in the Chiesa fight. He relies too much on his chin. He still gets too close to dangerous situations. He never gets finished in those spots, Luke. He never ends up suffering from them in terms of the fight outcome, but he certainly suffers them from perception. And then ultimately on some of the judges scorecards. So this is the best version of Cruikshank, which you mentioned, he had the

highlight reel knockout of Coke, which you're sort of like, wow. And you know, they explained on the broadcast, his dexterity, the word that Rogan was saying ad nauseum here, Luke is B was, I guess, because of his Taekwondo background. And he came out with some flashy shit. I mean, did you see that right hand in which he dropped Masvidal in basically the opening minute there? Masvidal got right back up and even taunted him. But again, Masvidal showing you whether it's a lapse in defense,

although again, I think his defense is more sound than we remember. He's giving up the big moments at the very least. He pulled this fight together. He won. He did what he had to do. He packaged it with the Pat Healy fight to work himself back into some form of contention. But Luke, I don't think he was improving here in some ways, right?

Even with the near submission in round two of Cruikshank, this is a guy he's supposed to beat. I don't think he really did it impressively, even though he did it. Yeah. I mean, he won this fight largely through, you know, he got takedowns for the most part, and he controlled the volume of Krukshank. Krukshank only had, between rounds two and three, he only landed five strikes. Five strikes. He just couldn't ever get going.

And even in the first round, when it was a little bit more wide open, Masvidal landing two to one almost on what Krukshank did. So I will say you're right. You don't come out of this fight being like, wow, Jorge Masvidal really showed me this guy is a future title contender. But in adding wrinkles to his game when he needed, not that he added a bunch of volume, BC, but he at least established a situation where his opponent

could not really have or have any volume. I sort of admire the smarts about that. It was a harder win to get than it might look like but again it was over and you didn't think that's a guy you got to keep your eye on for the future perfectly talented yeah that's a guy who's back on the prelims Luke and we advanced to September 27th 2014 in hindsight a more important fight than i realized in his growth but back on the prelims this time ufc 178 in las vegas luke that was that weird sort of triple header card which you had demetrius johnson against chris carriazo which people weren't pumped for but you had serrani

alvarez and mcgregor poirier packaged with that in the co and third co-main there so it's james kraus and here's what's interesting luke i want to pitch this to you i thought he fought too technically safe in beating healy and then crookshank this was a fight in which mazvidal had to fight technically safe technically safe and sort of calculated because james kraus is really freaking good he is really good and he's still on the prelims for this one but Kraus let's see coming into this contest uh we'll talk about the fight here in just a second but prior to losing to Jorge Masvidal let's see he had beaten Jamie Varner that was a TKO ankle injury he had lost

to Bobby Green no big deal but he had beaten Toby Yamada who had beaten Jorge and he had beaten Sam Stout back he had stopped Sam Stout so he, he had stopped Sam Stout. So he had shown some good stuff. Luke, you don't look good against James Cross. That's why I don't hold it against Jorge for this one, that this fight sucked to watch. Luke, it was, it sucked. The fight sucked. I didn't think it was as bad as you did,

but I also thought it was a showcase of some of the things that Jorge could do in terms of the striking. There'd be times where he'd get hit and he would come back. I thought it was good combination work from him, but the real lesson from this fight is not so much what he showed in it per se. Again, if you've been watching this guy's career for some time, did you see anything new in the Kraus fight?

Maybe, maybe not. But to me, Kraus, a guy that gives really good guys trouble, a guy like Healy to an extent, and some other ones, Chiesa to an extent, Tim Means definitely, he was the guy who could beat the guys kind of next to the guy he was the tweener he wasn't quite elite he was better than the good but this was the space he operated in so he wasn't really raising his stock with this fight to me he was preserving status and he was waiting for another one i think he

goes into his next fight which is the iquinta fight i think he was ranked 12 another one. I think he goes into his next fight, which is the Iaquinta fight. I think he was ranked 12th. So he's still on the outside of the top 10 here. Yeah, you need wins like this to get a push. Kraus was that sort of gatekeeper is the harsh word, but the gatekeeper at that point that you have to get past. So look, I'll give Masvidal credit. Showed good defense, was just as technical as Kraus was,

but maybe had the speed and explosiveness to finish the combinations better and and BC I thought this I thought he had the better punching power of the two yes I thought when he landed on Kraus it would hurt Kraus more than when Kraus landed on him we always know Jorge's had a good chin shouldn't lose sight of the fact that I don't think he's like the hardest puncher at welterweight he's a pretty hard puncher though yeah no doubt about it and we're still at lightweight here though luke yeah we're still that's what i mean like even up a weight class he's still a pretty hard hitter well this is a three fight win streak now so what he lost let's say in the hobby love defeat coming off of the the strong victory over uh kiesa now

it's three in a row now he gets a push luke go to April 4th 2015 UFC fight night in Fairfax Virginia it's Chad Mendes and Ricardo Lamas in the main event but this is the co-main event against Al Iaquinta it'll end up being Luke the first of these really kind of close competitive disputed controversial decisions but this seemed to be maybe Masvidal's first moment in the UFC to really make some moves in title contention, in celebrity, getting off of that prelim card and being featured on FS1 here in a pretty big spot. What are your recollections of how the fight actually played out? So I was actually there.

If you go on Fight Pass, you can see me kind of in the corner on the media row. This was an interesting one, and this was an interesting all week bc because i went to the open workout the open workouts were somewhere i think in like centerville virginia or maybe fairfax back when there was like ufc gyms everywhere when they had bought the franchise you know and uh so we went to the open workouts and as you mentioned main event was lamas and mendez and i remember they got all the attention especially uh Mendez, who was still a big part of Team Alpha Male at that time.

And he was the big hot attraction. Ally Quinta coming off the Ultimate Fighter. More people knew him. I remember people didn't really know who Jorge was. There was no crowd to talk to him. He did media scrums with us. And then he did a media scrum with Latin Media. And I remember his face lit up when he could talk to the Latin media more

than he wanted to talk to us. But he was, dude, he was, he was one of these guys who was like, I just got the feel of him at that time. And maybe that's not fair. I can only tell you what I,

what I observed, but he had a real like fighting. It doesn't define me. I'm going to clock in when, and then clock out and I'm going to do other things. Obviously he had much grander ambitions than that but it was just a weird moment I remember thinking to myself I'm like no one cares about this guy like you just couldn't believe especially if you contrast

that day in Fairfax Virginia to where he is now it is utterly shocking and he comes out in this fight bc and he puts it on al aya quinta in the first round to the point where i don't think you can give it a 10-8 but he drops ala quinta gets on top slashes him with an elbow to the point where now al is like visibly bleeding i think on the right side of his face and you can just see Jorge Masvidal heading back to the corner at the end of the first round in absolute control total confidence so the question to you BC is why did he lose well number one Luke he got screwed on the cards I'm willing to say that I'm not not like a Jorge Masvidal should have won that fight yes right certainly not a conspiracy I'm just saying they they gave it to the wrong guy.

And what's heartbreaking here, I think, for Masvidal is what we talked about were his issues coming into this fight about, let's say, what he still needed to add to his game. He was always giving away the big moment to his opponents, which gave them the edge in the close fights. This fight, he gave himself the big moments. Look, he's still a little bit too reactionary as the counter striker for my taste, but he's the one scoring the big moments.

He finishes this fight, right? Iaquinta, by the way, who got bloody and beat up in round one, was 0 for 8 in takedowns in round two, then stepped on the gas, but still got hit with the bigger strikes in round three and finished the fight a bloody freaking mess. It was Masvidal who scored the type of big moments, Luke, that can sway the judges in close fights.

He did what we would have wanted him to do. He gets kind of screwed over at the end, loses not only a decision he didn't deserve to, but Luke, he lost a shit ton of momentum. Both guys entered on a three-fight win streak. The winner was going to get a big push this turns out to be Matz Vidal's last lightweight fight in the UFC and um this is the famous incident which you can no longer see on YouTube you'll have to find or on

a fight pass excuse me maybe there's somewhere on YouTube if you guys recall back when Ray Janal was Ray Janal they announced him the winner of fight. And then he got booed by the crowd in Fairfax. They interview him afterwards. I don't remember if it was John Anik. I think it was Kenny Florian, whoever it was. They put a microphone in his face and he screams to the audience, you're going to boo me, F you. You're going to boo me.

So you got kind of a classic Raging Owl moment. But I want to pay attention to one last thing before we move on from this fight, BC. And this is kind of the story of Jorge Masvidal's career. Number one, the judges' scorecardscards here's how they scored it one judge had it 29 28 al another judge had it 30 27 jorge and then the other judge 29 28 out if you're jorge masvidal before you have this internal dialogue moment that he had before his big breakout moment, you must be saying to yourself, how in, to borrow from Nick Cage, how in Zeus's butthole am I beating a guy on three rounds on one judge's scorecard? Which, by the way, I didn't think he won the third, but it wouldn't be a scandal if you gave Jorge the third.

You could make the case. He left him bloody gave Jorge the third. You could make the case. He left him bloody and on the ground. You could make the case. You could totally make that case. And then he loses 29-28 on the two other scorecards. It's like we talk about curses, BC. He must have felt like he was cursed. Here's what's crazy, though.

In hindsight, being 20-20 and knowing the arc, and it's an unusual arc that he ended upon to get to where he is now but luke you and i have had an unusual career arc i wonder when he's if you saw his face when they read the decision he was just like are you freaking kidding me we've been there are the canadians gonna get all the good jobs why am i getting passed over why can't i pay my rent when i know i'm the best in the game? He needed those moments, Luke, to get to where he ended up being, to summon the animal inside of him. This was the first one in which it wasn't just a heartbreaking loss

where maybe he could have done more. He got screwed. You've been screwed. I've been screwed. Look at where we are today, Luke. And last thing I'll say about this, if you want to go back and look at it on Fight Pass, which we certainly encourage you to do, look at the scene when they're reading the judges' scorecards.

Because I think the first one came out 29-28, Al, and you automatically, Jorge's face changes. And then they go 30-27, Jorge, and he's like, okay. And in the back, here's a little nugget. Look at Colby Covington's face, who was cornering Jorge at that time. So he's in the cage awaiting the decision. And he's over there looking absolutely incredulous the entire time. It's a weird moment. Of course, I didn't see Colby at the Open Workouts at that time.

So I don't know where he was or whatever the situation was at that time. Colby wearing a John Kerry 04 t-shirt in the background. Yeah, maybe, maybe. But anyway, it's a real interesting flashback moment and this to me BC the Habilov loss is one thing but this is one of those losses there's some other ones too but for sure in the UFC this was one of those moments that I think ends up creating the Frankenstein and I mean this in a positive way that masvidal ultimately become this to me it would play a role driver it would play a role but it wasn't the full fuel now he moves up luke to welterweight in the next fight and what makes this weird july 12 2015 the tough finale of att

versus black zillions in las vegas cesar fajera is moving down from middleweight jorge's moving up so luke i don't remember the narrative at the time was masvidal having trouble making weight Cesar Fajeda is moving down from middleweight. Jorge's moving up. So, Luke, I don't remember the narrative at the time. Was Masvidal having trouble making weight? Was he frustrated looking at the title pictures of both divisions and thought he had an easier path at welterweight? Or was this a one-off to fill out the tough card? What do you remember about this? I remember he thought he could make 155, but it was kind of taxing.

And I think he just got tired of doing that. I think part of the issue may have been through his lightweight campaign, BC, that the weight cut may have been contributing to some of the lax effort, especially late in fights where he was not exhausted. But in the interest of like caution, I'm not going to get too exhausted in case something bad happens. But as a consequence, you were then reserving, you were portioning your offense and yes, you want to be judicious about it, but if you're hoarding it and then you're

losing fights, there's obviously a problem there. I think he thought, Hey, I can go up to Walter White. I can handle myself physically and the cut won't be nearly as bad. And I think the reality proved that to be true. BC in this fight, he looked awesome i mean he blows mutanchi who's who looks and the words of ben folks getting off the bus like the real deal holy field but in the end it wouldn't matter a guy like jorge mazdal what a performance this was in every dimension on the fence in the clinch at distance he had fajera's number from soup to nuts yeah it was wonder boy Ellenberger the main event for this fight which aired on FS1 uh Anik calling Masvidal during the introductions uh criminally underrated Luke 30 years old at this point

28 career wins but again he did give up a big somewhat big moment early when uh he threw somewhat of a lazy right hand Fajeda ducked, took him down with ease. The narrative became his for hate of the bigger fighter coming down in weight, going to be able to manhandle him. But to Masvidal's credit, he gets to his feet. He turns that around. Maybe Luke, this was the initial, I'm going to learn from what happened in the raging out fight. We're not going to the cards. I'm going to let my hands go because after the finish, Brian Stan says, that's a man who's been burned by decisions before he would not allow this to go to the cards well said uh it was a win that you know it didn't announce him but it was a turn in the right direction at the very least

uh yeah still though and by the way this is uh the second time he's won a fight night bonus he won one against Havolov and they got performance of the night here against Fajita. So he certainly is now commanding attention. And if you're going to make an introduction to a weight class, it couldn't have gone much better than this one. Really a classic Jorge Masvidal performance on the good side. But BC, then we have another classic performance from Jorge Masvidal on the bad side. Now, here's the deal for this.

A lot of folks forget some of the specifics. Masvidal, for UFC Fight Night 79, which is the one he takes on Benson Henderson, he was not supposed to. It was supposed to be Tiago Alves, his ATT teammate, taking on Benson Henderson. And Masvidal was supposed to fight the stun gun Dong Hyun Kim but Alves pulled out and they needed someone to replace so Masvidal jumped at the opportunity

this fight was the UFC's debut in South Korea they had never been there before and obviously Benson Henderson in the headlining role half black half Korean you can even hear the Korean fans cheering Benson Henderson's name and it's a big moment for them. They needed a big main event and Jorge Masvidal, I'll say it again, doesn't look bad in this fight at all. He very much gave Benson Henderson everything he could handle. But BC, we keep asking the same questions. Why did he lose? Look look i think the asterisk does play a big role here this is november 28th 2015 and look like this was a big moment a big opportunity for jorge he didn't cash it in right but this was a big opportunity he's fighting a big name he's in the main event he takes advantage of the last minute opportunity here luke but the key difference is it was a fight

in which he prepared for three rounds against Stun Gun on one week notice. He's taking on a five round fight. Why that mattered in the end, Luke, it went the full five rounds. He's fighting a Benson Henderson, who, by the way, I forgot this was Benson Henderson's final UFC fight. His contract expired. He would, of course, become a big free agent pickup for Bellator. And after this, where he still stands today, but 10 of the previous 11 Benson Henderson fights had been

scheduled for five rounds and Luke and as we remember almost all of them went the distance right Benson Henderson in a five-round fight became a norm so I think it became in the end Maswell did not have the five-round stamina he didn't do enough despite I thought winning the exchanges when they let their hands go corner cornering Benson against the cage, landing really good combinations, but they were flashes of that. It was, to some degree, although different circumstances, Anderson Silva against Bisping where, you know, Anderson had the best big, you know, the big moments, right?

Didn't do enough over the portion of each five-minute round for five minutes, five, 25 minutes, you know? So it's like we're recognizing here that this guy's great. Kenny Florian said on the, on that broadcast, like, look guys, there's no holes in Masvidal's game. And I think, you know, to, to a large degree in terms of the big flashy items, there's not. And this was a big celebrity opportunity, but in the end, Luke, it wasn't just that he didn't do enough.

I think that some of those dips in stamina allowed Benson Henderson to answer Masvidal's best moments, not with bigger ones, but enough moments of his own where when you're a judge and you're looking at it, it didn't go to Masvidal in the end. Even though Benson was just 3 of 12 on takedown attempts, what we said earlier is true. It takes a lot of gas out of Masvidal and i think henderson's flying knee to end round four luke probably was a big uh you know swear in in a key round there

late in the fight in a fight that ends up being a split decision loss and you mentioned three of 12 takedowns so overall not that great but here's the key one of those takedowns happened in the fourth two of them happened in the fifth right in the championship rounds as the fight was winding down someone put their foot on the gas and somebody kind of did it wasn't like you had a lazy performance from Masvidal but this was another one of those things where it's like dude what was the difference ultimately between Benson Henderson and Jorge Masvidal in this fight and the answer is one guy was just a little bit and I do mean a little bit busier than the other one yeah especially when it mattered kind of late in the championship moments there is not a huge gap neither guy got dropped in this one we credited with a takedown or I should say a knockdown there wasn't a huge

momentum shift one direction or the other it's just that one guy just had a higher output. And in the end that made a big, big difference. Also should be noted. Not only was Benson Henderson going to the scorecards a lot at this time, you know, with three rounds or five round decisions or whatever, but he was getting all of them. It's like the Melendez fight. Sorry, Benson Henderson lost that fight.

If you've got a great gas tank and you're a championship level fighter, which at this point in his career, Benson Henderson was still fight. If you've got a great gas tank and you're a championship level fighter, which at this point in his career, Benson Henderson was still a great fighter, had moved up to welterweight, but still, you understand how to do this. You understand how to win key rounds by doing key things in key moments. So let's give him that credit. Luke, I want to ask you a key question entering the next fight

because it was going to be interesting to see how Jorge responded, right? He'd already had the somewhat of a robbery against Al ally Kinta. Now he loses a split decision against Benson in typical Masvidal fashion. I was wondering if this would force him to really let his hands go and put his foot on the gas. We fast forward to May 29th, 2016 UFC fight night in Vegas. It's Almeida and Garbrandt in the main event, the Bantamweights. But Jorge draws Lorenz Larkin. It's pushed down on the lower main card, lower profile. How does Jorge respond?

Key point I want to tee you up on. Brian Stanton opens the broadcast with this bit of information. Masvidal so upset by the run of split decision defeats that he sits down with a group of Nevada judges and basically says, what am I doing wrong? What do I need to do better to not lose by split decision? Every fight, they said more forward pressure. They gave him a couple sort of keys of what they look for. Luke, why did he still end up losing by split decision to Lawrence Larkin? For the same reasons he always did. I don't think he always did i don't think he would i don't think he was

ready to absorb that lesson yet he this is the stage of his career where it's dawning on him that he's giving away big fights because that benson henderson fight i don't know if we said it or not that was the main event so that was the first time he had been the co-main event with alia quinta on that card behind Lamas and Mendez. This is the first time against Benson Henderson, which I know we just reviewed. That was the main event. So he's still on the main card here against Lorenz Larkin.

I don't think he was ready to learn the lessons yet. I just don't. I think he needed another, honestly, a series of moments, but he needed something else to push him in that direction to get over the hump Lorenz Larkin is fast he's got good combinations he can get in and out of range he can exchange with you he doesn't make a ton of mistakes especially at this stage in his career and Masvidal I think has just you know again what do you want to say BC was he coasting he wasn't coasting no I'll tell you what happened here. I'll tell you what I saw, if you don't mind me jumping in here, Luke.

Please. I think he used the potential of learning the lesson. He tried to learn it. He tried to implement it. But one of my biggest notes that I wrote, what did I learn from Masvidal this fight, is that he's a bit confused and doesn't know who he is. So what I mean by that is before this,

Masvidal's best offense came with big counter shots and with counter flurries and combinations. When he feels he's got an opening to make a rush on you and pin you against the cage and let his hands go, right? That's, that's when he explodes. I think he was weary of the idea that he's not doing enough each round. So what did he try to do here? He was aggressive, but he was aggressive with a jab, something we don't consistently see Masvidal do up to this point to work off of. He's not a traditional jab, jab, right hand. That's not what he does. He tried to be here.

I think the problem was wrong opponent, wrong time. This was a still somewhat prime Lorenz Larkin, who was just faster than him, more athletic, and picked up on the timing of Masvidal's jab and was able to counter with cleaner shots on top of the jab and i think it bewildered masvidal i think this is the first time luke and i believe we would see it again wonder boy fight is it is a you know another harbinger of that that type of thing where you mentally i think he's just like what the frick

who am i i think this fight he's just like i don't know what i need to be to really maximize my potential here and i think that to him and you know he said this a million times in 2019 it's never been about titles or all that it's about getting paid this guy's been fighting since the you know the dirt lots and up to this point still never really got that moment yeah yeah the last minute main event with bendo but he wasn't able to capitalize on that i think luke it was about getting himself to a level where he can consistently make big money and make this a career. This is still at the level where you're struggling. He's struggling to figure out who he is and how to become that at this

point, wrong fighter, wrong time. You lose another split decision. It should be clear in terms of just output. He gets, he loses the output battle for whatever that was worth in the first round wins it cleanly in the second does really good work in terms of overall striking in the second and in the third it's nearly identical and so you can you say he should have done more yes can you also say maybe it's bad luck yes for all the guys like Benson Henderson who gets all the nods even when maybe

he shouldn't we should recognize there are some guys whose activity the judges just seem to pick up on and then there are guys like Jorge whose activity they don't seem to pick up on it doesn't resonate as much with them and you can find good reasons for it in a lot of cases but accumulatively it began it began to get a sense it's just like this is not the guy where if it gets close the judges are going to give him the benefit of doubt not because they hate him but because for some reason his game just doesn't come across by the way we have been saying there wasn't a whole lot of media narrative about the guy because there just wasn't a lot of media narrative about the guy given the stage of the career he's in at this point in his career bc switch weight classes had the big win moves up

has the main event doesn't go well but it was close against Henderson here is when the narrative starts to get baked in which is that Masvidal is a very good fighter he's going to give the elite ones problems but he's going to lose and if he has another guy who is level um he might lose that one too just by virtue of effort he is very much worthy BC of your respect but maybe not your betting dollars at this stage in his career and this is where you fall into some of those labels is he a journeyman at this point no but he's he's looking to be more of a gatekeeper at this point which isn't that far away from eventually because look there are elite gatekeepers gatekeeper doesn't have to be an insult it just means that there's a level that you're at and you don't typically go above that level. And you're the testing ground for others to try to get to that level. He fell

into that here. So here's the key, Luke, this wouldn't be the last split decision loss of his career. Wouldn't be the last loss of his career that would teach him a lesson, but it was another important one to start. I think one of the more important runs, this kicks off a stretch of three consecutive wins for him that uh again didn't learn all of the lessons but we see changes in these next three fights that helped lay the foundation for who he did eventually become in 2019 let's give him the credit the losses to Henderson and Larkin there were a lot to learn I'm seeing a guy start to learn it as we turn the chapter a few months later here in 2016 yeah

here's the key i want to talk about this in just a second which is he he does have another pair of losses coming up the maya and thompson loss and we'll talk about those significances but what you can see here bc is after the loss to melendez three fight win streak the loss to have a lot of three fight win streak now he loses to ayahuasca then beats fajita and then has two more losses we lost three out of four from ayahuasca to larkin but after larkin three fight win streak. Now he loses to Iaquinta, then beats Fajeda, and then has two more losses. We lost three out of four from Iaquinta to Larkin. But after Larkin, three-fight win streak. He is finding ways, for the most part, through these losses to level up.

So we mentioned now we go to UFC 201 July of 2016. We're now, geez, that must have been UFC 201. So this is after the announcement of the sale. He's still fighting Ross Pearson at UFC 201, and it took place on the card, by the way, back on the prelims on Fox Sports 2. But he wins this one pretty handily. You see, 29-28 on two of the judges' scorecards,

a full 30-27. Ross Pearson just had, he just could not deal with the striking prowess. Let's be honest. I mean, Ross Pearson's a hit or miss brawler right this was his fourth fight Luke in 2016 we're only halfway through the year at this point and he had just fought Will Brooks three weeks ago in Las Vegas in a fight in which he got sort of controlled early but came on big in that third round it was Will Brooks's UFC debut coming over

from Bellator so here's a guy almost perfect, for Masvidal who's coming off two consecutive split decision losses. He needed a less skilled guy who would stand in front of him and let his hands go. And it's not that Ross Pearson wasn't game or didn't have moments. Round two was really fun. We had good two-way action. I thought, you know, Pearson almost got stopped at some point. Then he looked like he was rallying. He went to the wrong corner after the second round. So it sort of shows you where he thought the fight was over. He put his hands up. I mean, he's just sort of in there to brawl.

What I didn't like though, Luke, Masvidal kind of played it safe in round three. I felt like he could have maybe finished him or maybe should have finished him. So even though the response here from Masvidal is good, he was much more offensive in the first two rounds than maybe he was in the two split decision defeats. He's against a less skilled guy. Who's going to come at him and bring it out of him. Luke, why did he not try to finish this man in the third round? I don't know. Cause

he had helped. He had kept a good lead on him. That's why I still think there's a part of him here. Not so much affected by the weight class, but that if I don't need to do more, I just won't. There's no, it's so obvious. I don't need to do more I just won't there's it's so obvious I don't need to do more and in this case he was right he was right that he did not need to do more in order to get the win but that mentality you can still see he's carrying it with him it's like dude Ross Pearson basically more or less did not have anything for Jorge Masvidal he really did not on that night certainly and yet Masvidal never felt compelled to really put it on Pearson or the gas

or send a message or make a statement. He always kind of felt like, oh, look at how beautiful my work is. Isn't that statement enough? And in some cases it can be, certainly, but given some of his career trajectory and given some of the losses and given some of the losses and given some of

the reason for the losses, certainly this was a great win. Don't misunderstand me, especially getting back in the win column after two losses, but he's kind of carrying with him a little bit of those, the bad habits or that weird outlook into it. It didn't affect him in his next fight at all, BC, which was against Jake Ellenberger, the juggernaut uh this was at the ultimate fighter tournament of champions finale and jake ellenberger was in a bit of a weird spot in his career he had come off of a win over matt brown but he's in the he's in the that matt brown win was the last win he would ever have the masvidal loss would carry him basically into the end of his career and jorge masvidal absolutely blew the fucking doors off

of Jake Ellenberger can you read a whole lot into this win BC or can you say Ellenberger was kind of done at this point I think he did to Ellenberger what he nearly did to Pearson in round two in their fight and probably could have or should have done uh look this was the Demetrius Johnson Tim Elliott Fox of title main event where Elliott won the ultimate fighter tournament and get the title shot. Uh, Ellenberger to your credit looked ready to go almost midway first round when he's just getting lit up by Masvidal. It was sort of the right, I guess, commercial showcase performance, second straight knockout Masvidal re retooling re, you know, reloading and rebuilding his brand. But we also had this weird ending Luke. If you remember where Ellenberger's toe gets caught in the cage,

he falls over, they stop the fight, it looks like it's going to be a temporary break, and it leads to a TKO loss. It certainly does. It was a first-rounder, so he's had two... Here's the thing, he had the two first-round finishes since moving up to Welterweight at this point. The Mutonchi win, and now the Ellenberger win.

But while those wins are nice in the sense of how he won, since moving up to welterweight at this point the mutanchi win and now the ellenberger win but while those wins are nice in the sense of how he won i'm asking like where's the signature victory at this point and it doesn't really you don't see one yet you see good victories he's beating opponents he should be in the way that he should be beating them but he hasn't beat the one that you didn't expect him to get over or the one that surprised you at this point and that's where the next fight comes into place and to me this was when folks begin to say aha he might be able to do something kind of special we go to UFC on Fox in Denver Colorado Jorge Masvidal not only wins he wins another performance bonus this was on the

Shevchenko versus Peña card. This was the co-main event. Cerrone obviously from the Colorado area. And Jorge beat the fuck out of him. It was not really all that close. Masvidal, excuse me, I should say, Cerrone had a couple of moments. But Masvidal basically beats him in the first. In fact, here's how I know that.

I've talked to Brandon Gibson, who was cornering Donald Cerrone. And he told me he wants that one back. Cerrone gets dropped very badly in this one in the beginning or excuse me the end of the first they go back to the corner and they try to talk him into getting back in there and it doesn't work he goes and gets demolished in the second but Brandon Gibson told me if he had that one back he would not have sent him back out in the second round he was just way too done but this is the key I saw aggression from Masvidal yeah I saw smarts I saw angles I saw jabs I saw ranges he looked awesome in this fight so this is why I said coming off of that loss the second in a row there to Larkin that the next three fights were so important it it reminded Jorge of who he could be, a destroyer.

Did he get the right opponents? Yes. Pearson Ellenberger propped up, made for him. It turned out that Cerrone fit that bill as well. But look, I want people to remember, because I didn't remember. When I'm looking up and down, I'm like, oh, then he destroyed Cowboy next.

Let me look up where Cowboy was. Let me guess. He took the fight on two weeks notice, and he split his last two, four fights with two knockout wins and two knockout losses. No, this was very much maybe the, the, the second to last chance cowboy was very, very propped up. Luke, he came in on a four fight win streak, having won 12 of his previous 13 outside of the Connor fight, which again, cowboy didn't deserve. We know why he got it right. The only other time Cowboy in his career was propped up again was that dad Cowboy one, right? Where he beat Iaquinto and he kind of re rebuilt himself for one last run at a potential

title shot. This was the time before that. This was really as, as prime a Cowboy as you could hope for, even though Masvidal looked great, Luke, I have a lot of hindsight issues with this fight and Cowboy. One, this is like the very, like, proof of Cowboy's biggest issue. He freezes on the large stages, right? This was a UFC on Fox card. It was a co-main event. This is Cowboy in his home state of Colorado. The crowd is going sick for him, Luke.

And he comes out there. And not only does he, it's not that he fought awful. I mean, he ends up getting stopped. He probably, the fight should have been stopped in round one, by the way, we'll get to that in a second as you tease, but they say on the broadcast, he watched no tape ahead of this fight. And his quote was, I just don't care. And he went to the steel Panther concert the night before stayed out late. And his quote was, you don't turn your life off during training camp so luke that's like the epitome of what was wrong with cowboys warning track power career that like you know he'd get really close to being legit he'd just kind of

screw himself and maybe it's apropos that he was the one who laid down for jorge here who was having the same issues but not for the same, getting really close to being something and then falling short to Jorge's credit. He looked fantastic. First round fun cowboy game, letting his hands go, but Jorge's just hurting him. Luke, that fight should have been stopped at the end of round one, that huge shot from Jorge dropped him. It was a two punch combo. It looked just like a big left left hook but there's a sneaky right hand in between um i don't know if was it herb dean i forget should not have allowed him to uh walk back to the corner he's a mess he comes out he was obviously damaged in round two and i think it was a merciful stoppage where cowboy is backed up against the fence he's getting flurried to the body herb dean's just like all right that's it bro we should have stopped that earlier um great

win but did you see masvidal do two things here luke and maybe this was again a preview of what was to come he gets in cowboy's face after the stoppage and talk shit and then as the crowd's booing him he's doing all kinds of heel tactics we didn't really see that out of mazvidal up to this point yeah and he was in you know the hometown and antagonizing him, as we've been talking about. This was one of those fights where afterwards I was like, aha, you like it when they call you the bad guy. Okay, we're going to see how he plays on that. That'll be kind of interesting. Now, BC, this looks kind of interesting to me.

The next fight in the line, and this is the moment i should say no let me correct that this begins the moment where i think he gets fed up because he has elevated himself he just beat donald serrani back in 2017 uh january 2017 we're now in may now he's looking to really build inside that top 10 top five kind of space and if you want to remember after the knockout to serrani john annick on the broadcast goes we have a new welterweight title contender and uh you know he he brings up the fact of um excuse me he says underappreciated no more so while we saw mazvidal sort of get to his lightweight ceiling heading into the um which fight that he lost or heading

into the iacuenta fight which he lost by split decision ultimately left the division now for the first time luke at welterweight he is a legitimate title contender three fight win streak all by knockout i'm sorry two of them by knockout and now we enter into ufc 211 right you could say oh pearson overmatched ellenberger at the end of his run maybe seroney didn't do what he was supposed to but seroney held a coveted position in that division at the time, and Masvidal blew right through him. So it takes us now to UFC 211, BC. This was in Dallas, Texas.

I bring this up because I was there. In fact, they're calling it on Wikipedia, the UFC welterweight title eliminator. So let me tell a story here real quickly before we talk about the fights. I went to the media day before this. It was at the house of blues in dallas texas which by the way sucked um there henry cejudo was there no one wanted to talk to him it was fucking hilarious but i'll never forget this and i remembered it big time when you know he was going into the bmf fight because i was just reminding myself like how far he had come in the media day for this

no one wanted to talk to Jorge at least very few he wasn't like a big attraction this was the rematch between Stipe and JDS and Ioana was on this card and so they were the big ones that everyone was caring about at media day Jorge Masvidal dressed in all black and he had gold chains here And I remember asking him if he was all just an all black for effect. And what he had said was, you know, he was doing a godfather bit, you know, sort of like the this sort of like Italian mobster kind of thing. To me, BC, after the win over Cerrone, I think he liked the booze. I really do. Because because finally they were registering. Iaquinta was booed, but Jorge left the cage and I think was so bitter about that.

He just didn't want to be a part of it. So the Fairfax crowd actually had his back, but the Colorado crowd did not. And he made a big impression. I think he was at this time wrestling with the two things. One, why do I keep losing? Although he'd been winning, but still two things. One, why do I keep losing? Although he'd been winning, but you know, still on those big fights, why do I keep losing? And also he was trying to find himself.

He was trying to find his identity. He was trying to find something. The Godfather bit didn't really work, but I could see him wrestling with it at this time. I got a story about that as well. So I had been at UFC 201, which was the 2016 fight against Ross Pearson. You go to media day, Luke, you know, the, the bigger name fighters is going to be a long line in front of

them. The other ones you can just walk up to that was in Atlanta. That was Woodley and Lawler. They had a decent line. There was a lot of interest in Rose Nama Eunice who had been bumped up to that co-main event. Nobody was talking to Masvidal to the point that I didn't even interview him. Luke up to this point, I was working at ESPN at that time. I had been interviewing some fighters. I was an MMA editor. I was chipping in on writing. I'd never talked to Mazum at all. I didn't remember ever seeing him interviewed. So then you fast forward to UFC 211, May of 2017 here in Dallas. I had just signed with CBS Sports. I'm on the job three months or whatever. I fly down to Fort Lauderdale, the home office to meet the people. They tell me, our producer, Mikey goes, Hey, we got interviews on camera.

If you want to sit in the studio, you're going to get you wanna, and you're going to get Masvidal and JDS, whatever. Luke, I sit down with Masvidal, never talked to him. I don't think I'd ever seen him interviewed. Seriously. He fricking blew me away. So think about it. Nobody's in line for him at UFC 201.

He beats cowboy a couple months later he's getting this I'm a heel I'm the bad guy thing Luke that interview I ended it on the camera going where have you been all my life Jorge he was swearing up a storm he was talking shit about everybody in his division or not he's making fun of McGregor He is just throwing darts at people that I thought, Luke, wow, this guy looks ready to be a star. And now that you mentioned it, that was a number one contender fight. It was a Demian bio who was looking to make that one last run at a title shot that he would eventually get against Tyron Woodley. So, uh, that's the stage here. He's on the main pay-per-view card in the, in sort of the chief support bout out of the two title fights.

JDS and Stipe in the rematch in the main event. Ioana and who was it? Was it Andrade? Andrade. Andrade in this one, Luke. Yes. Now, we also have to note. We thought it was going to be Jorge time, Luke.

It turned out to be another Jorge fight. Right. It did, and it turned out to be another lesson we learned about Jorge in terms of some of the good and some of the bad a lot of the bad understand something here about though Demian Maya he had come into this fight beating Yakovlev LaFleur Magni Gunner Nelson Matt Brown and Carlos Condit and he had finished the last two via rear naked choke this was when Maya had gone he said you know I'm not even gonna try to be a striker anymore what the fuck am I doing I'm gonna drop down to

welterweight I'm gonna leave middleweight I'm just gonna go back to my jiu-jitsu and it worked really well obviously not enough to beat Tyron Woodley after this fight but that's who Jorge Masvidal had to tangle with in BC it ended up being another classic Jorge Masvidal dot, dot, dot loss where he was not overwhelmed. He was able to stuff a gazillion takedowns. Are you crushing your bills? Defeating your monthly payments? Sounds like you're at the top of your financial game. Rise to it with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa card, the credit card that rewards your good financial habits earn points for paying your credit card bill in full and on time every month level up from bill payer to reward slayer terms and conditions apply from Demian Maya Demian really

never got close with the submission although he did find his way to the back consistently all right okay fine but you're not End of the third round. End of round three. He almost got that choke. Okay, all right. He got kind of close at the very, very end. But in general, Jorge Masvidal made a pretty strong account of himself

in a loss, did he not? So here's what I want to ask myself, Luke. We talked in the first four or five fights of Masvidal's UFC run there when he was at lightweight. And I'm saying, look, Luke, he's more technical than I remember. And then maybe he should be because there are these fights where you want him to do more. So what does he do after the split to division defeats? He goes out there, blows away Pearson, Ellenberger and cowboy. He's being more offensive. He's not worrying as much

about defense and technique. I wonder if that led him into a sort of a trap in this fight where he's got a guy whose only goal is to be right in his face, trying to get a takedown. And while to your point, Masvidal stuffs it. And yes, Masvidal had that big moment. He spent most of round one with Maya on him in the backpack. He finally flips him off with 30 seconds to go. And he puts on a flurry of grounded pound where you're like, Oh my God,, if this guy wants to, he can turn this fight around. But, Luke, I think it was almost he got out-techniqued at so many different levels here where he spent all of his time and energy defending the takedown. It was very similar to some of the early lightweight losses.

Maybe the I'm going to go in there and be the knockout threat cost him in some way because he got out-techniqued in this one. Or maybe he's never going to win this fight in this circumstance Luke but he was lifeless to a certain degree by the end of it so like the the Wonder Boy fight like we're going to get into and like maybe the end of uh the Larkin fight I mean I feel like a guy is just defeated wondering who am I how do I freaking get over that hump this is to me where he's still trying to will himself into his next stage, the caterpillar who becomes the butterfly, and he is still locked into the chrysalis, so to speak.

I mean, it's a tortured metaphor, but the point I'm trying to make is, BC, the old part of him was still pulling him back, kind of weighing him down, where, listen, man, when Jorge Masvidal wins or loses, well, except for the next bout, he doesn't really get outclassed.ed I mean he got outclassed here in the sense of the jujitsu but not to the point where it was catastrophic it really wasn't there were no 10-8 rounds here in fact the decision 28-29 split 29-28 and 28-29 he actually won two rounds on one of the judges scorecards won one on all three that's the story of Jorge Masvidal you don't see him getting mounted and then getting cut and it's like Jesus 10-8 how's

he gonna make it out for the next one he just kind of gets beat plus also BC we saw in the Habilov fight we saw it less so in the Healy fight obviously but we've seen it here again you spam the guy with takedown attempts along the fence line he's gonna be there at the end of the fight you're not just gonna win easily but he has trouble getting going in those circumstances it's been a kind of a hallmark of maybe one of his shortcomings throughout his career so luke uh lightweight run three wins in a row stunted by the iquinta split decision loss welterweight title run three wins in a row stunted by the split decision loss in the Eliminator. Just a couple months later, he's back in New York City, Luke.

It's against Wonderboy Thompson. It's UFC 217, November 2017. I think it's fair to say, like, where was his head? I don't remember. I didn't interview him ahead of this fight. I don't remember exactly where he was. I mean, this fight was decently featured on the card, card of course and on the pay-per-view main card and if you remember this is one of the best cards in ufc history this is gsp bisping cody tj1 all right or is it two

regardless this is the first one i think and then rose yoana won this is the fight right before that paulo costa and johnny Johnny Hendricks would round out one of the best pay-per-view cards in UFC history without question. But this is still a featured fight. But who is Masvidal entering this fight? Luke, is he just another guy now? See, this is funny. He built up this momentum heading into UFC 211, lost a little bit.

Obviously, at UFC 214, you had Mayavidal excuse me you had Maya go on to fight Woodley that was the co-main event of the John Jones Cormier rematch he lost that so that's out and now Masvidal's looking to you know just get a relevant opponent to get he wasn't too far from the title at that point maybe okay the loss was bad but it's Maya and Maya lost if you can get another win you're not too far away and this is the first time I've ever seen him lose BC and by the way I don't remember doing him doing a ton of media for this fight either although I think this is where he was beefing with Michael Bisping remember because that took place in New York and this is before he and Bisping mended fences he was kind of angry at him but this is the first time I've ever seen someone take a 10-8 round on masvidal

and like you couldn't really argue with it uh he got out class here by wonder boy luke he was rudderless here there was no immediate payoff for this you know i mean it's probably a good payday for him but not great uh yeah you could say okay if he comes here and he beats wonder boy he could advance into the title picture but it wasn't a clear path into it luke i think he was rudderless he was just taking the next fight and luke this was the most disappointing it was more competitive in hindsight than i have labeled it publicly in the years i think it was because you look the first two rounds he was kind of competitive kind of he's not winning the rounds he's losing losing the exchanges. He's getting out technique. He's getting out work.

He's getting out a lot, but he's still, I guess, a threat power-wise. But look, that third round, man, I mean, he's just mentally not there. He's not in the fight. He's a white belt in there. He's just getting dominated. And I remember thinking at that point,

not only is Wonderboy reborn coming off of that two-fight series with Woodley, but Masvidal, maybe he's not that dude. Maybe he'll never be that dude. Maybe he's always going to be that sort of journeyman is the strong word. Probably not the right word, but a guy who can't get out of his own way to figure out how great he can be. He's not offensive enough when he needs to against the the technical guys.

Sometimes he's too technical where he should step in and do more. Who the hell is he this this is what fueled and led him literally luke to the wilderness to begin a 17 month layoff which included what a reality show in central america where he's literally like playing survivor basically yeah one last thing on this too it's that he had a bad game plan you know i didn't like his game plan in this fight it just felt to me like he took this fight thinking i'll win this and be right back there and didn't give it the full consideration but maybe he wasn't in the right mental space to even win it because as you indicated it was this was the fight where he was like what the fuck am i doing with my life at this point you know i've been this far into my

career why am i still losing these kinds of fights so he goes on a break we haven't talked about this yet bc but i was thinking about this i don't think that jorge masvidal yet is the biggest latin superstar when i say latin i don't necessarily mean um the brazilians obviously i mean spanish speaking so i should say hispanic suppose, because you can be Latin and be Portuguese descent in Brazil. But I think he's often had this. Jorge, I think, loves, and I mean this sincerely, I think he loves being Latino. I think he loves his culture.

I think he's always wanted to rep for it. I think he's always wanted to be for it I think he's always wanted to be seen as a prominent member of it and he's always wanted to do something for it give back to it just be in a bigger part of it elevate it I think Cain Velasquez is still the biggest Latin superstar we've had again Spanish speaking but Jorge Masvidal is kind of sneaking up on him Cain had the belt he went to Mexico City obviously we can't go to Cuba because blah blah blah where he would be from but you get the idea like to me he's got designs on that part of the journey to get there was kind of he had to go backwards a little bit

so he goes on a show called Exatlon E-X-A-T-L-O-N and how do I explain it it's like real world versus road rules only it's on I think Univision or Televisa one of those two major networks and it pits all these Latin superstars from different sports or maybe reality television or whatever there's been some Colombians that my wife knew one of the guys who was on the Colombian weightlifting team for folks who may not know they have one of the best weightlifting teams in the western hemisphere they had him on there and so Jorge goes on there but the key is BC when he goes on there, I'm going to tie this all together. He doesn't have access to phones. He doesn't have

access to email. He is alone with his thoughts. They barely have electricity in this place. He is alone with his thoughts for weeks on end months in certain cases. And it is during this time that how would you describe it? he has more than an epiphany that he can do more he can be more he has this change in his entire outlook where he realizes i am who i think i am but i've got to do these things to get there and that's when the change begins to happen he had the same kind of life revelation that like Rashad would have at like Joshua tree national park, Luke, after some, after licking a toad on a payday weekend with a shaman. And by the way, I don't say that to make fun of, I've said that because I respect the healing process that's coming through that, that change in, in how we look at things. But what he

instead had Luke, the romanticized almost, almost mythological version that he tells. And I, and I'm not, I'm not saying that it's not true. I'm saying is that, look, he sat out there, had time alone and thought, you know, why am I not finding out how great I could be? I should be out there in his term, baptizing people. And I think that, you know, you saw that transformation in 2019, but I also want to add this. I mean, that was a 17 month layoff. I believe you want to know how, how hard this guy had gone before that five consecutive years leading up to that break. He fought three times a year. Look, we know that when you're at that level where you're just short of being like a

breakthrough title contender, who's always in the co-main event in Maine. We talked about it. He's always buried on the prelims on the Fox cards, right? You're not getting paid a ton. You sometimes have to fight three times a year to kind of, you know, make ends meet and live the lifestyle that you feel like you should be as sort of this burgeoning fighter who's trying to break through. We've seen it a million times. The grind physically and mentally is rough on these guys.

There's times that they just hit walls and they're going through the motions. Oh, I need the money. I'm going to take the next training camp. I'll, I'll fight through this injury. I'll just bite down and they're going through the motions oh I need the money I'm going to take the next training camp I'll I'll fight through this injury I'll just bite down and do it I'm a warrior I'm tough and all that I think while the time away and the cell phones off certainly helped him realize how good he can be and that it maybe would come through a combination Luke of violence and next level confidence. That really was the, the true essence of what his 2019 turnaround was.

He doesn't get there in my eyes, unless you literally press pause for 17 months, mentally and physically, and stop doing that grind, that grind will kill you. Why did GSP walk away on top? That grind is real. There's a mental fatigue that comes with preparing and going through this. That seems to be as big in his changeover as the ultimate revelation. And

obviously it's such a great story because it came later in his career, in his mid thirties. It came at a time, especially after the Wonderboy loss where you're like, you know what? Maybe this guy is just a journeyman. And Luke, I think what's interesting is it's what his rise became in 2019, where he became a global superstar. He literally became a household name. It's not as big of a leap after you watch the previous 10 fights, which we just did. Like he was pretty damn close a couple times.

But I think it was like McGregor's rise in 2014 and 15, when you are at a level of confidence where you are so dialed in and belief in yourself, and obviously you're putting in the work and you are evolving your game and all those things that need to be there. But when your mental capacity is so tied into your goal of who you already know, you are, you may not have achieved it yet. You don't have the money in the bank. You don't have the title. You don't have that, but you believe that it's already happened. I just need to walk the path to get to it. It's a special level of confidence that changes your ceiling. It changes. It's why the McGregor magic that I'm still talking about five years later as being a

thing, meaning McGregor was always good enough Luke to be Aldo and do the things he did. But he only did that in my belief because he believed himself at such a cosmic, insanely strong, magical level that he willed himself like Tim Tebow in that run to the playoffs, like Jeremy Lynn in that ridiculous two weeks with the Knicks. He willed himself to a level that maybe he never could have gotten to without the heartbreak and all the obstacles leading up however it happened luke he came into 2019 ready to freaking bang not dissimilar to me in the last 48 hours post vacation yes one last thing about this uh bc if you never heard of him i really recommend it because this guy's had a pretty influential um way of uh reframing my own thinking on some of these issues there's a guy named cal newport he's a academic who has done a lot of study on how much um on on studies of the mind and what

all the input in the digital era does to it and one point he has made uh and i have it's funny i was reading cal newport right at the time that jorge was on the show so i hadn't talked to him yet and it was afterwards i was like wow these things are all echoing each other but cal newport has made a point about like how much we just fill our minds with stuff all day is if you think about it from the moment you wake up you can open your phone and you have phone input coming in and you can constantly be in conversation on your phone and then you go for a run you don't you don't do anything but you listen to a podcast or songs. And then you fill that off. You turn back on the computer.

Then you turn on the TV. In other words, even in the shower, you can turn on your phone. And you can just play it wherever you are. To the point where you're all day long driving in input from the outside. Your brain never gets a chance to absorb all of it. And more to the point point you never have an internal dialogue you don't have a moment with your thoughts to begin to sort them and unpack them and see how you feel your point about the grind is great he is so focused on the grind he's not

able to do the internal work that he needed to to get to that next stage and that silence in the I think it was Costa Rican jungle, wherever it may be, it forced it on him. He could not retreat to the phone. He could not retreat to email. He couldn't even retreat to anything other than sometimes no conversations, just himself. And that internal dialogue was when he was finally able to sit across from himself and say, enough is enough. Enough is enough. I have had enough of this and I am better than this. I am going to be better. So that takes us BC to 2019. And that's when street Jesus comes out. He has long hair. Now he comes out of the

woods, like a real mountain man. And he takes on Darren Till. And I love this fight because those guys, they talked up the fight because those guys they talked up the fight BC but they had mutual respect for each other and the fight played out perfectly he gets dropped classic Jorge Masvidal he'll come back and he'll give this one away and he doesn't why uh and but let's add on there he's in London in Till's backyard and they're retooling Till to be the next McGregor right after the loss to Woodley. And why does it happen, Luke? I think it's because that mixture of confidence with the aggression that wasn't there. Again, he had aggression in certain spots, big counter shots, flurries whatever now luke he's mixing explosive offense with a belief that he can do it and i don't want to discount also who he became as a striker in 2019 a lot of this credit goes he's in a great team he's in att they got great coaches great sparring partners iron sharpens iron when you're in there with with poirier and you're in there with uh you know colby i mean you're it's

like there's an all-star team there. We know that, okay? Luke, you look at that two-punch combination that ultimately finished Hill. And obviously he had to get up off the canvas, Masvidal, from being dropped. He got taken down quickly in round one. He got poked in the eye to start round two. He's in enemy territory and everything's against him. Yet his mental toughness to focus on what he needed to do

and add the wrinkle. So it's the confidence, it's the toughness to focus on what he needed to do and add the wrinkles. So it's the confidence, it's the baptizing, it's all that. But how about those wrinkles, Luke? The lead right hand faux jab to change Till's guard, and then the switching of stances into that left hand in which he basically concussed him in midair and then still lands a follow up left to put him down till is out cold it was shocking it came at a point where maswell had been fighting good

in that fight but certainly not great i mean you know we just talked about the big moments he get he gave up he was on his back twice in round one the overwhelming crowds going crazy but look at the freaking way he put that together dan hardy and commentary screaming unusual entries unbelievable huge statement it was luke did you see masvidal's reaction it was the heel that came out in the cowboy win times a thousand it was like he had the going he had the you know what I dreamt this happening this was supposed to happen and I came out there and I freaking did it so Dana get me that title shot Luke I'd forgotten he's already talking about a title shot here after beating Till and you know why did he

win well he landed a nice punch here's another reason why he won he took the fight to Darren Till he didn't wait for Darren Till to take the fight to him and then to fight back he had brought it right to him even though he stumbled quite quite literally I suppose in the initial entry and BC that's not the full story so uh enemy territory Till had come off the Woodley loss and that was a nice win for Woodley but that was his only loss at that point and he got submitted he got dropped he got submitted. He didn't get viciously put out. He gets viciously put out here. Jorge Masvidal gets it.

To me, at that point, at that point, that's the biggest win of his career, main event, first main event win that he had. And then afterwards, Bret Okamoto, or I should say no, Bret Okamoto gets the interview. Laura Sanko puts a microphone in his face, and then he goes and steals on Leon Edwards which is the whole thing that goes viral then on top of it this was the trifecta BC it was the amazing win over Till in enemy territory he steals on Leon Edwards which just creates this

incredible moment and then has the charisma to narrate three piece in the soda and glide out of there. And instantly the MMA fan base was completely hooked on this guy. How important was the Leon Edwards moment mixed with the catchphrase to what he became in 2019? Cause that's three wins all by knockout. He becomes your fighter of the year, which nobody would have guessed, right? A year earlier that Jorge Maslow is going to be the fighter of the year in 2019. He's an instant title contender. he's a pay-per-view headliner but does any of that happen without that moment with Edwards we we tend to forget that in the in the in in looking back on what actually happened that year I I tend to think that a couple things happen from that I view

both the Leon Edwards punch with the Senko interview and the Okamoto interview. I view them together. Together, I think it's either as big or almost as big as the win over Till itself. The win over Till is pretty important. Excuse me, I got that Rona. But it did so many things. It not only showcased personality and built rivalry it also showed UFC brass we got to get this guy in grudge matches now maybe we can't make the Leon Edwards fight but when he's got a real target of opportunity here somebody he doesn't like and he clashes with he didn't necessarily have to have that with still in fact again they had mutual respect the whole time those two guys have never said a bad word about each other even to today but they realized wow that's great it can be so

much more with something else and i think that's what led to the askren fight um and hold on just real quick it's such a pro wrestling moment the three piece you know whatever but it is do you know what's one of the turning point moments in pro wrestling history luke that promo stone cold steve austin delivered at king of the ring wwf 1996 when he looked in the microphone and did the austin 316 said i just kicked your ass thing think about who steve you don't know because you didn't watch it but steve austin was a solid but journeyman wrestler in wCW in the years before that he had gotten fired when he got injured, he went to ECW and after round,

he ends up getting this WWF kind of tryout, but he's also the ring master and he's this regular dude. This comparisons to Mazda are frightening. Then he delivers that promo and it takes off. Mazda almost had his Austin three 316 moment but i wonder luke while he's calling for title shots is ufc thinking this guy actually is a future title contender and star or to your credit are they just thinking he's hot in the moment let's get him in a blood feud i i think there was still skepticism about him, but I definitely,

look, here's the thing. No one has ever thought Masvidal was a bad fighter. Brian Stan, I think he called the fight with Cerrone if memory serves, right? It was Brian Stan and Anik or Brian Stan and somebody else. And you hear also in the Mutanchi fight, you hear Brian Stan heap praise on Masvidal's ability. We always kind of knew he had it. How much?

Was he the very best? I don't know. But he's always been good at everything. So I think that they had that respect, but I think they wanted to milk maybe both sides of the equation. Okay, let's see how good he is. And also, hey, this is just too good to pass up. Let's build on it.

So that, BC, takes us to one of the most interesting moments, hey, this is just too good to pass up. Let's build on it. So that BC takes us to one of the most interesting moments really in UFC history, quite frankly, because it's UFC 239. And what's happening in UFC 239? This is Jones versus Santos, Amanda Nunes and Holly Holm. So two title fights on that. But right below is Masvidal versus Askren in BC. Let's be honest about the buildup to this.

This was the Jorge Masvidal-Ben Askren show. It was nice to have Amanda Nunes and Holly Holm. That was cool. Jon Jones, that's great. But you and I, we covered that fight. Almost all the attention was on Askren and Masvidal. True or false? I mean, as a Canadian likes to say,

that was the people's main event in a lot of ways. And Askren Luke really was the perfect opponent for this not just because he can play into that trash talk wwe style and he's also sort of a curmudgeon to begin with but because you know there was the jury was still kind of out he made his ufc debut yeah he showed heart in beating robbie lawler but you know it was sort of like did he deserve that win i'm not really sure he's still that bellator guy or that one championship guy. And he's going in here against this UFC longtime, you know, bridesmaid. And I mean, everything's was sort of perfect, but to play off of what he did with three piece and a soda and building that look, I, I was part of a little mini moment there when

Brandon Wise and I flew down there to Fort Lauderdale, went to ATT, sat down with Masvidal. He told us, I'm only doing this interview with you because Dan Lambert personally asked me to. I'm not going to do any other interviews until fight week leading up to this fight. And he gave us gold, Luke, including one specific quote that we'll throw to right now. Don't question my manhood, first of all, ever.

And second of all, especially to you because you're you, you know, you're beta. You know, you survived off, I don't know what, man. But I'm going to make sure his bloodline doesn't reproduce or nothing after July 6th. Oh, my God, that just fired me up. You heard that? Wow. Wow. Yeah.

Extinction of the Aspirin, bro. In massive level. And look, I love that quote because it's vicious. I mean, he's going to end the Askren bloodline. I got Askren to respond, and he was basically like, I can't believe CBS, a reputable company, would publish that. So the momentum's building. But Luke, there could have been so many ways this fight lived up to expectations.

It could have been a back-and-forth war. Either guy could have won. Even, you know, Masvidal could have won a decision. He could have won by first and forth war. Either guy could have won. Even, you know, Maslow could have won a decision. It could have won by first round knockout after exchanges. Nobody could ever have possibly predicted this running me five seconds in or whatever. But look, this was basically Aldo McGregor all over again, meaning it was one of those. Holy shit. Where were you moments that takes one person and just catapults them so freaking high because of just the absurdity of the moment, the timing, the violent nature, the everything about

here's this loudmouth brash guy. And again, Masvidal-McGregor kind of more alike than apart in a lot of ways in terms of some of the comparisons. But that's one of the all-time, what, three momentsfc history luke it's like mad knockout and you yeah fast and like the other knockouts are like yeah i'll say other knockouts that were fast like the hominic uh loss to korean zombie or jonathan goulay getting face planted by duane ludwig those are obviously very very nice very quick knockouts you know, those are fights that just took place on cards. This was a huge grudge match, and it was coming off the heels of everything. And once again,

Jorge Masvidal rises to the occasion in this post-exit line self-awareness moment. What I mean by that is, BC, he not only does that stuff to Ben which you know the presence of mind and the willingness to do that quite risky pays off enormously follows up with two monster punches to an obviously completely unconscious bent you know frozen Ben Askren referee jumps in he's banging on the octagon floor hecklingling the guy. Then in the post-fight press conference, John Morgan asks him, were those extra punches necessary? And he picks up the mic and says, what? They were super necessary.

And launches that shit into the stratosphere. Dude, after that win, the rocket ship had left Fort Lauderdale. It was gone, dude. Dude, you can't repeat that moment a thousand times if you tried it like it's just one of those super special insane incredible full court buzzer beating shots where it's like you know i was there but i missed it luke i was front row i'm doing a live blog i looked down i heard it right and i heard the the arena go just chill and then explosion but it's just insane i mean that is maybe like like i mentioned it real quickly earlier like you know

the the matt hughes running slam of frank trigg the holly holm head kick of ronda rousey uh there are iconic moments on the shortlist that is right freaking there forever no matter what jorge mazzola ever does again and it doesn't get there Luke to your point on the hominic and the other ones unless that feud was so good leading in unless it offered Masvidal such a big opportunity to raise his star Luke he hit a grand slam home run like over the stadium wall and it landed in like uh the pope's cup of water as he was walking by. I mean, it's the most like absurd, ridiculous. And to find out after, not just super necessary, that they had footage of him training for it in the locker room,

planning on doing it. And it just, I mean, it's just, look, it's perfection. And you started to believe that Masvidal can do anything, which is what we believed during the McGregor rise. And it was going to be interesting who they were going to match him against next yeah at that point you knew the world was his oyster we didn't know right was it going to be McGregor was it going to be a title shot because also Ben Askren we haven't even talked about this he not only did the whole heel and talked it up and blah blah blah uh he'd been doing that for some time and he had had the Robbie Lawler win which was controversial but it only gassed Askren up even worse so he was at all-time annoying

peak by the time he got there and then Masvidal just handles it perfectly now Masvidal is officially a household name in sports at least at that moment in time certainly among combat sports fans you know he's an attraction the question is how you want to book it going forward at that point and then they decide bc this is how you know he has arrived at his next fight it was a headlining role it was on pay-per-view it was in madison square garden the president of the United States had arrived. They made up a motherfucking belt for the baddest motherfucker. Dude, you can't script. Can I add one more? Yeah, go ahead.

They made Canelo Alvarez, who is a bigger star globally, and Sergey Kovalev, because I was in the arena in Las Vegas, wait for 90 minutes in the locker room for Jorge's fight to finish because they knew going head to head was futile. Luke, I remember when I saw that report, I don't know if it was Ariel or Brett, whoever broke it, that this fight was a reality thinking like in that moment, like I cannot believe the UFC just gave the keys to Jorge Masvidal and Nate Diaz for a pro wrestling belt at New York's Madison Square Garden and a pay-per-view

main event. It was one of those, like we made it like our guy did it type of moments. And it was also, it was surreal as shit. And then even though Luke, the promotion failed to live to any kind of expectations only because they had a lot of respect for each other. You almost had like two guys who played the same position in terms of trash talk like you needed a mcgregor to play off of either one but that press conference in which they did on the water and what was it brooklyn with the brooklyn bridge in the background and when mosvidal comes out wearing that you know tony montana drug lord suit and even though it was one of the more cringe press conferences ever i don't know if you remember

there was no quality control on the questions and we had um that was the that was the uh the terminators of vegan two line from nate diaz yes that was a very much like okay let's ask somebody else who has a weed question for nate um it was basically triller was in control of that but yet luke um again the fight lived up to expectations. It was violent and exciting. And Luke, Jorge was so much better than Nate in that matchup. I mean, he hit again a grand slam. Let's do it again. Where was Nate heading into this fight?

So he'd been off since the second Conor McGregor fight from UFC 202, which was in August of 2016. He was ghost until August of 2019, three years away from the fight game. He came back at UFC 241 and beat Anthony Pettis. And by the way, beat him walking away, not a close fight. He looked great in that fight. So you're thinking to yourself, Jesus Christ. Yes. Nate Diaz, he's been transformed by the Conor McGregor rivalry. So he's a huge star. He has a win against Anthony Pettis so he is now in line for whatever he's going to be in line for Pettis I remember was a welterweight had moved up to beat

Wonderboy so there they are and they have this fight BC and I don't like listen we like Nate Diaz we think the world of him we're glad he makes a lot of money this was an ass whipping and I know the fight ended in very um unfulfilling terms but you know you had the rock there handing out the belt Masvidal shined from the first moment to the end it wasn't his fault that the fight got stopped because of the cuts so it didn't quite deliver on expectations but it did solidify that Masvidal was a star attraction i had talked to his manager abe kawa in the belly of the masson square garden that night when he did the post-fight press conference that's when he's eating all the pizza that was the meatiest pizza it's fine he can have it um i actually drank some of his mezcal when he left it on the stage pretty good by the way

jorge you made pretty good mezcal but the point being is I'd asked Abe Kawa are you guys getting pay-per-view points for this and he was saying BMF no BMF everything at this point for him is pay-per-view points because he's that kind of a star dude that was the moment he didn't transcend anything new but you knew that this guy had solidified his position in a major major way how surreal and again like i thought asani should have been fired of the year this is not the moment to debate that it's surreal that he became the fighter of the year with from this that he was a legitimate title contender which we get the next year but look they're the damn rock like you gotta give the ufc credit okay they created the damn bmf title which is like the equivalent of like the ecw hardcore championship in pro wrestling and

they had duane the rock john Johnson in there to put it on. And although we never got official pay-per-view numbers, not just because UFC doesn't release those, but in the ESPN Plus era, it's a lot harder to get. I did see like rumors afterwards, Luke, that it did like 955,000. Let's say that's true. In this era, post-MAMAC and MAPAC,

in which the pay-per-view industry had just been destroyed in this era, where if you do three, 400,000, we call it a success, right? Those two guys got together for a fake belt and did almost a million. I mean,

that is monster. Jorge Masvidal was a household name. He was walking on water, a street Jesus, not to be sacrilegious, but you get my point. It's just, I cannot believe looking back and you know what, Luke, he also cracked the pound for pound top 10. And I think he deserved it. He was a dangerous explosive. One thing we don't talk about enough. We talk about the celebrity and the knockouts, but

to set up those knockouts, he had figured out how to be super dangerous. I mean, like a really, really explosive striker. Again, took the fight to Darren Till, took the fight to Ben Askren, took the fight to Nate Diaz. Nate Diaz survived by that doctor. I mean, maybe the doctor shouldn't have called the fight because you could maybe argue if that fight was in Nevada, it would not have been called. But that doctor did Nate Diaz a favor. Jorge Masvidal was going to continue beating on him and it was not especially close so then there was this issue about what would be next Connor or they're going to run it back or what's going to happen and of course the pandemic hits and everything changes

and Gilbert Burns is lined up to fight Kamaru Usman at UFC 251 for the welterweight strap. But Gilbert Burns gets COVID. So on like six days notice or something, they basically call, a week notice, whatever it was, they call Jorge. He loses 20 pounds in a week. And he goes into this fight for the belt.

This is it, BC. Wow, he's on the hottest win streak granted it's last minute notice but it had the had the fight community buzzing they were happy for gilbert but they were even happier to get masvidal he has to lose a bunch of weight and in the first round bc if you look at the numbers he actually just had a shit ton of offense but he couldn't get anything going after that and loses a five round decision 50 45 on two of the judges scorecards 49 46 on the other what went wrong here it was a it's such a weird fight in hindsight and i've stuck with the narrative you could tell me it's not fair but i've stuck

with the narrative luke that here's a guy who took the fight on short notice so we give him that respect he saved the card it was a giant deal and fight island and ufc coming back in the quarantine and all that stuff. But Luke, you know, I, I know that you don't have five round stamina when you take a fight on six days notice. I just didn't see a guy. So you asked me what happened? First of all, here's what happened, Luke, the combination of not having five round stamina mixed with, Oh, by the way, Usman's like possibly the best fighter in the world right now. And I think this was his real breakout moment. Usman had already been champion. fighter in the world right now. And I think this was his real breakout moment.

Usman had already been champion. He'd already dominated Woodley. He'd already done a lot of stuff, right? Hey, he'd already gone five rounds with Colby in a standup war. But until he joined forces with Trevor Whitman for my money, he didn't start to show you that there is potential that he could really round out his game. The same potential that would lead to that very impressive stoppage of Gilbert Burns in his next fight which look he went out there and knocked out Gilbert Burns I

mean this is insane right he's he's a dominant wrestler who now was showing you on the feet switching stances a reliable jab he really was fought a smart yet aggressive fight against Jorge but I stand by this narrative I was upset that this fight wasn't made to begin with. I know it was COVID. So, you know, everyone's got a different thing, but I thought Jorge should have went after this fight. And I don't even know what he's being offered financially. So it's hard for me to take a stance against him on that. But I feel like this fight should have happened in 2020

with a full camp the right way, whether it was UFC not offering him enough or him turning it down or whatever. And while it was great that he took it on last minute notice, you're still expected, Luke, in my eyes, to do what Chad Mendes did on short notice against Conor. Go for it, right? Go for it. And if you gas out and lose, you still got the excuse.

Meaning if you gas out and get stopped, I felt like Jorge Masvidal got to a point where he's gassing out against Usman. He realized he could lose badly and he went into survival mode. And there were a lot of people because of the goodwill he built up. And because it was worth our admiration for him to accept the fight on short notice, gave him a pass. I felt Luke for the reputation that he had developed as a former backyard street fighter willing to fight anybody will punch Leon Edwards in the back room will take this fight on six days notice he owed it to himself and us and I know it sounds stupid when a keyboard warrior tells a fighter you owe it to me

to go out on your shield obviously he doesn't but in the sense of who are you and what's your brand and what are you protecting Luke I feel like you're never guaranteed a second shot that was his chance whether he took it on last minute notice or not i don't feel feel like he went into that fight with usman and put his best foot forward and was really willing to risk it all to try to win i felt like he was okay with the loss once it got to a point where it wasn't going to happen to his credit he lingered heered. He didn't fight again. He's still a big star, despite people kind of turning on him to some degree for certain political stances or whatever. He got a second chance, Luke.

Okay, so whatever. But you want to tell me what happened? He didn't go for broke in a fight where... You're fighting for the title, dude. Like, I don't know, Luke. Am I wrong? Also, Kamaru is hard to look good against right I mean even when you even when you last against him you know it's hard to win two three

rounds off the guy it just is it's hard to win a minute against him you can land a good shot or something but he really turns it around pretty quickly I mean just listen to this control time for Kamaru first round two and a half minutes second round three and a half minutes third round three minutes fourth round three and a half minutes fifth round three and a half minutes that's either on top or pressing him against the fence that's just all that's just too much control time to give up think about this BC just from his output right and granted he took it on short notice I understand he attempted 43 strikes in the first he attempted 32 strikes in the second 19 in the third 15 in the fourth and then a little bit about the same 16 in the fifth but only landed four he just fell off a

cliff and so to me uh it's funny to me this reminded me of the old masvidal guys who can control him and spam him with takedowns kind of have a way of just getting by him at the same time though bc you have to recognize whether we agree with that narrative or not whether we think it's real or it's not the fact that he took it on short notice and did well enough to last against usman and also usman didn't shine either he did enough to get the win but he didn't look like like usman in either the woodley or the Burns fight. I think that's fair as well. It did set up enough appetite for people to say, aha, but what if he had a full camp?

What if he didn't have to travel across the earth? And that, of course, brings us to Saturday. Well, then I have a point and a question to make on top of this because I don't want to be unfair to him. I don't want to be ignorant here. So, number one, I personally think he thought, look, I'd been riding that high of three knockout wins in 2019. I'm the fighter of the year. Yeah, Woodley's got a great, I'm sorry, Usman's got a great gas tank and he's, you know, a great wrestler.

But he can't strike with me. His chin can't take my power. Look what I did. I think if you look back and watch the first round of Usman, Masvidal won. Horry actually landed some stiff shots, some big shots. Problem was, Luke, Usman wasn't going anywhere. So I think that contributed to some degree of, I'm getting more tired.

Why don't I pack it up and save face? But I do want to ask you this about me being unfair. Let's say he did the BC challenge and went out there and just went for broke and he gassed out and he got caught and he either got grounded, pounded and lost, or he got caught with a punch and was knocked out. And he's just, he's done, right? He's George Foreman and Zaire. He's just done. Does he get a rematch? You know, you have to ask yourself, was that the smarter move to lean on the short notice and get two paydays out of it? Because

let's not be unfair to Jorge. He's always said it. I'm here for the money, bro. I've been fighting for 20 something years and didn't get what I feel like I'd earned and deserved. So if you're going to frame it like that, I will shut the hell up and give the man a chance to cash the big paycheck. There is though a lot of double down pressure on him now with a full camp show us everything you still have at 36. Can you do this as a three to one underdog? Yeah, this is it. This is it this is this is your big chance okay it didn't go for whatever reason whether you packed it in whether you were just too tired and you mustered whatever you could uh i also think he has just a lot of um i don't think he minds pressing on the gas i really don't but i also think he's got too much pride to just let a

guy like kamaru finish him off by virtue of going for it. I just don't think he can allow himself to look that way, and he had the ability to prevent it, so he did. But this is it. We keep talking about his signature wins. At this point, you have to ask yourself something. Was the win over Diaz, was that the peak of Jorge Masvidal, or is Saturday going to be the peak for Masvidal maybe some time after that but you have to really ask yourself I believe BC in his transformation I believe that he had a dialogue it with himself and that changed things but I also believe that even if you have that internal dialogue it doesn't make you a perfect fighter and it definitely doesn't make you invincible you still have weaknesses that you have to address he took the fight to those other three guys in order to beat

kamaru usman bc he's gotta take the fight to kamaru usman he cannot wait back for this guy to press him into the fence even you know is he gonna fight great and lose a split decision like he did at certain points in his career for not doing enough? Look, there's a couple of things in play here. Number one, I think Usman's a better fighter than he was a year ago, two years ago, three years ago. It may just be, Luke, that no matter who comes out across from him, that Usman's going to win on Saturday. We're going to find out, right? We have no idea. But I think for Masvidal, Luke, the great ones in sports, think of a Kobe Bryant who was obsessed with greatness. I mean, it's a pretty, there's not highs and lows.

I mean, it's a steady arc, right? And a buildup. And then maybe a little bit of decline as he gets older. But I mean, Kobe scored 60 in his last game. When you are great, you're able to sustain that. Jorge Masvidal has always been a very good fighter with great potential who looked like in 2019 for all the reasons we mentioned figured out how to be great my question is a year and a half later has everything that's

happened in that year and a half from the quarantine to sitting out to losing to Usman and whatever mentally comes with that to you know having his star value dimmed a little bit with the loss and maybe out of sight, out of mind, all those things. Is it possible that he can still be the 2019 Mazda at all again? Was that the very peak of himself? Meaning, look, Luke, you and I, we're grown men. We've been single and in trying to become married, we've had peak. There's been a peak Campbell in my 20s, Luke. I was pretty cut up and ripped. I had abs went to the gym every day. Luke, I could, I could probably never be that again. Right. And I certainly don't have the same motivation to be that, that I was in that window. Right. I was aiming for something

and I became the best of me. Jorge Masvidal in 2019 found the best of him. Is that sustainable? If it is, we're going to have a fun fight on Saturday. If it's not, then we've seen the mountaintop, and it was Madison Square Garden, and it was Nate Diaz, and this has been a hell of a career, by the way, for Jorge Masvidal. Yeah, it's interesting to me. I think that you have to ask yourself, the transformation, BC, that he underwent after the Wonderboy fight, it can be real, but it can also be real for 2019 and maybe the fame and

the money and all the things he wanted have not created a situation where he's been able to sustain that right so in 2019 when he was beating Diaz and Askren and Till dude he really was a different guy is he still that different guy all this time later when he was wearing the robe and showing up to places and he's got a liquor business and his youtube channel has this whole thing going like he's got a lot of irons in the fire and good dude for a guy who had been robbed of good paychecks for a long time it couldn't have happened to a better guy but can he sustain it we are especially when you overreach luke especially when you overreach mcgregor has never been again and will never be the guy in the aldo or alvarez fights um again

tim tebow will never be again the quarterback he was in that broncos run to the playoffs right when they upset the steelers jeremy lynn for two weeks was the best point guard in the world never became that again when you reach and find an extra upper room gear that you didn't know was possible everyone didn't know was possible it's hard it's look it's hard to sustain that brother and he's going to need to be that against kamara usman i think you know this luke i think you know in your heart that kamara usman has a case for best fighter on the planet at this moment he certainly does but we will leave it there that is the resume of Jorge Masvidal took us two hours basically to get through at BC but we'll say this every fighter we do this on whether

they win or they lose they have their own unique trait but Masvidal has maybe the most unusual of that a guy who had been primed for greatness kind of forever never really got there and then in an instant everything exploded we'll see if he can keep that up i have enjoyed this good sir this is the best two hours of my life luke and probably all the listeners so thank you all right so if you have any feedback please leave it in the comment section who do you want to see in the next resume review and don't put someone you want to lose because by the way jorge might lose this fight but i still bc the last thing on this curse thing listen jorge might lose on in fact I expect him to lose on Saturday to be quite candid with you but but I will say

this these guys who we pick it's not only fun to go through the resume somebody like Jorge needed this somebody not that we like saved him or something what I mean to say is it's worth for a guy like Jorge who had success out of reach for so long and then to finally get it that unusualness I do believe is worthy of examination and I hope that we did him some justice for what he has accomplished amen say that all right all right for Brian Campbell I'm Luke Thomas this has been Morning Combat's resume review best of luck to everyone thank you so much for watching thumbs up hit subscribe we'll see you all next time the curse is real