Top Jorge Masvidal fights the UFC should have made
After 20-plus years and 22 UFC fights, Jorge Masvidal is finally calling it a career.
The former welterweight title contender and “BMF” champion announced he was stepping away from mixed martial arts following his unanimous decision loss to Gilbert Burns Saturday at UFC 287.
Though Masvidal gave fans many memorable moments inside the octagon (see his five-second knockout of Ben Askren at UFC 239), here are five more dream fights the UFC should have made before he retired.
Khamzat Chimaev
This fight would have made an excellent welterweight title eliminator. Masvidal poked fun of Chimaev for not making weight for his last fight against Kevin Holland at UFC 279 and stated he believed the 28-year-old Russian wouldn’t be around the sport for much longer.
Chimaev is the No. 3-ranked welterweight contender with an unblemished 12-0 record. Five of his six UFC wins have been by knockout or submission, and a bout with Masvidal, who has seven finishes in his last eight UFC wins, had Fight of the Night written all over it.
Kevin Holland
These two got into not one but two altercations prior to UFC 287 with some more trash talking during the press conference two days before the card. A grudge match seemed to be on the horizon had both fighters won their bouts on Saturday.
While Holland beat Santiago Ponzinibbio via knockout in the third round on the main card, Masvidal dropped a unanimous decision to Gilbert Burns. The trash talk between these two will likely go no further, though a fight between them would have presumably been wildly entertaining.
Colby Covington II
Although these two fought a little over a year ago, the real-life beef between these two alone would have been enough to sell the fight, which likely would have done over a million pay per view buys. Covington dominated much of their UFC 272 fight, taking Masvidal to the ground and stifling his striking.
Masvidal got the better of Covington, though, outside of a Miami restaurant a few weeks after the fight — an incident he’s now facing three felonies for including aggravated battery and criminal mischief. What better way would there have been for them to settle the score than inside the octagon?
Leon Edwards
Edwards is another fighter Masvidal had a run-in with outside of the cage. After a UFC event at the O2 Arena in London (Edwards’ hometown) in 2019, Masvidal attacked the current 170-pound champion who was chirping at him backstage, leading to Masvidal’s infamous “three piece and a soda” reference.
Edwards stated last month if Masvidal got past Burns he’d relish the chance to “smack his head off.” Following back-to-back wins over former champion Kamaru Usman, Edwards is at the top of his game and though a fight against Masvidal would be compelling, it likely wouldn’t be as competitive as it would have been four years ago.
Conor McGregor
Arguably the two best trash talkers in the UFC, it’s a shame these two never got the chance to face one another. Masvidal ventured that a fight between he and McGregor would draw well over a million pay per view buys, calling the bout a promoter’s dream.
The 28-year-old Masvidal said that a potential bout against McGregor at 170 pounds would favor him because he’s “bigger, stronger and meaner”, stating he would “dismantle” the former lightweight champion. The buildup to this fight would have been legendary and the fight itself would likely have been one of the most-anticipated in recent memory.
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