Cejudo: Masvidal Is ‘Too Smart’

It’s been somewhat of a fall from grace for the one-time “BMF” champion Jorge Masvidal since achieving that label in 2019. After the conclusion of his highly-anticipated grudge match at Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) 272 with Colby Covington, “Gamebred” now finds himself on a three-fight skid.

Covington defeated Masvidal via unanimous decision this past Sat. night (watch highlights). Majorly utilizing his always impressive wrestling game, Covington managed to stifle his ex-best friend’s game for the better part of their five-round affair. After the fact, Masvidal admitted that he wished he began honing his wrestling abilities earlier on in life. Well, a pretty darn good wrestler by the name of Henry Cejudo believes it’s not too late for the 37-year-old two-time Welterweight title challenger.

“What I would do with ‘Gamebred’ is, you would want to make him more of a technical fighter,” Cejudo said on The Triple C & Schmo Show. “Sometimes he gets into these flurries. He’s too smart.

“If I was to help him out it would be with his distance game. Keeping him at borders, like never allow anybody to get into the upper cutter-hook range and things of that nature, slipping through, going over the areas of concentration in wrestling, different little tricks because remember, I fought. Wrestling and MMA wrestling, it is different and people need to realize.”

Cejudo, an Olympic gold medalist in wrestling, has started training and working with some of the best names in the sport down at Fight Ready in Phoenix, Ariz. since retiring in May 2020. Most notably, the former double champion has recently aided the likes of current UFC Flyweight champion Deiveson Figueiredo as well as former champions in Zhang Weili and Jon Jones.

“There are things you can slip out of, and there’s things you really gotta defend, but you cannot get into these scramble positions like he did with Colby, which eventually exhausted him,” Cejudo said. “I think I would help out ‘Gamebred’ a lot. I like ‘Gamebred’ even though we stopped talking due to our management firms with Ali [Abdelaziz] and Abraham [Kawa]. I’ve always had so much love for that dude. But my door will always be open for ‘Gamebred’ if he decides to rejuvenate his career. I believe I can help him tremendously.”

Prior to his Covington defeat, Masvidal suffered back-to-back title fight losses against current 170-pound titleholder Kamaru Usman.