Jorge Masvidal ‘Absolutely Willing’ To Fight Kamaru Usman At UFC 251

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With Fight Island’s debut main event in jeopardy, Masvidal makes it clear he’s prepared and ready to go even against a tough opponent like Kamaru Usman.

The welterweight title fight between Kamaru Usman and Gilbert Burns at UFC 251 may be off due to a positive COVID-19 test from Burns, but offers from various fighters keep coming in to save the day.

In the arena of top five welterweights, we’ve already seen Jorge Masvidal and Colby Covington throw their hat into the cage. And now we have confirmation from Masvidal’s manager that Jorge is indeed serious about fighting Usman should the UFC be interested.

“According to Jorge Masvidal’s manager Abraham Kawa, Masvidal is “absolutely willing” to take the Kamaru Usman fight on a week’s notice,” ESPN’s Ariel Helwani tweeted on Saturday morning.

Of course this comes with the unspoken caveat that the UFC would have to pay Jorge properly, a super necessary demand “Street Jesus” has been making for weeks now in various media outlets. But the two sides may be closer to working that out than it may seem at first glance. Before moving onto Burns as the next welterweight title challenger, the UFC offered Masvidal the same financial terms he received to fight Nate Diaz for the BMF belt. Word is Masvidal only refused the agreement because of the last minute ‘take it or leave it’ delivery of the offer.

That’s the kind of hot under the collar decision that might appear a bit foolish in hindsight, and with this new opportunity to say yes to a pretty okay deal rather than sit on the sidelines making nothing, who knows what is possible. Masvidal has also been in the gym training, helping Dustin Poirier prepare for last week’s Fight of the Year contender against Dan Hooker.

If this is going to come together, it will have to happen fast. Fight Island is in Abu Dhabi and there’s a whole chain of protocol in place to test fighters repeatedly before they’re allowed to step into the locked down bubble on Yas Island. Kamaru Usman is still in the United States, having never got on the plane with most other US fighters that left on Friday night. That in and of itself may spell the end of the possibility of a welterweight title fight happening at UFC 251. But wouldn’t it be great if the UFC pulled out all the stops to make it happen?