Kamaru Usman may not have wanted to acknowledge Jorge Masvidal, but it appears Masvidal will be his next title defense.
UFC president Dana White teased that the championship fight will likely take place during the UFC’s annual International Fight Week in early July and that negotiations are currently ongoing.
Speaking this week to “Submission Radio,” Masvidal (35-13 MMA, 11-4 UFC) said UFC welterweight champ Usman (16-1 MMA, 11-0 UFC) didn’t exactly have a choice over who he fights next.
“He’s super-forced into this fight,” Masvidal said. “Dana said it, and what is he going to do now? So, I don’t think too much of him. So, I don’t want to talk about the guy too much.”
After putting on a thrilling clash with Colby Covington at UFC 245 that ended with “The Nigerian Nightmare” stopping the challenger in the fifth round, Usman mentioned the likes of former victim Leon Edwards as being a more worthy challenger to his title.
“You would think any champion would want to fight the ‘Fighter of the Year’ in their weight class to extra prove something, to set themselves aside,” Masvidal continued. “This guy wants to fight a guy under me that he already beat, or if not, do fantasy matchups, the guys in Japan or other organizations.
“If that doesn’t let you know what’s going to happen, nothing will. He knows the formula. He knows about me very well. So, there’s a hundred other people he’d rather fight than me.”
Usman and Masvidal have been mouthing off at each other for a while, and even had a verbal altercation on Super Bowl Radio Row. But Masvidal says it’s unlikely that we see another “three-piece and a soda” because he doubts Usman would actually step up to him unless there’s plenty of security around.
“He never will,” Masvidal said. “He sees Ben Askren and Colby, and he runs up on them and he gets this close. He would never in 100 million years get within an arm’s distance of me. I’ve just seen him at the UFC (247), and I’m behind a barricade, and so was he, and he’s with security and he’s trying to act like we’re going to fight today.
“Like, stop, man. Everybody’s laughing at you thinking you’re a (expletive) idiot. No one’s going to fight, dude. You’ve got five security guards with you, I’ve got five security guards with me, there’s a barricade. Stop. But that’s who he is. I think he’s got to sell a lot of himself for people to engage with him, because it’s not working.”
Jorge Masvidal: UFC champ Kamaru Usman is 'super-forced' into fighting me next