JORGE Masvidal spent five painful months away from his children – something he promises to make Nate Diaz pay for.
The fighter faces Diaz on Saturday in a boxing rematch – five years after his victory in the MMA octagon.
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Masvidal – still under contract with the UFC – received special permission to enter the ring before returning to the octagon.
And he left no stone unturned in leaving his home in Miami to train more than 2,000 miles away in Las Vegas.
But the fight faced several months of delays – leaving Masvidal more time to hone his new skills.
Although it was very costly to be away from her two daughters and her young son.
“Nate has to pay for everything, you know, his face has to pay all these bills,” Masvidal told SunSport.
“Yeah, it sucks, man, because I always have my kids as my support system, like if I get beat up at the gym today, I’m going to hang out with my kids and we’re going to eat some shit. pizza and this and that and tomorrow will be better, you know.
“But I didn’t have that support system here. So it’s been difficult at times.”
Masvidal, 39, spends weekends with his children and makes the most of phone calls when he is away from them.
“A lot of FaceTime calls,” Masvidal said.
“I went to visit them for a few weekends and they recently left. They stayed here for two weeks with me.
“Now, after the fight, I’m going to pick them up again for another two weeks. So it will be like this. We have the time divided practically 50/50.
“So during camp here most of the time I wasn’t collecting on my own time, but I still got to see them on the weekends and things like that, you know.
“But I just had to replace it with something, you know, because it was destroying me at first.”
Masvidal enjoyed a meteoric rise in 2019, knocking out Darren Till in London and then scoring the UFC’s fastest knockout of all time.
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He followed up a five-second flying knee over Ben Askren with a stoppage against Diaz.
But Masvidal has suffered four spin defeats, most recently against Gilbert Burns in his Miami backyard in April 2023.
This briefly spelled the end of his career before he announced a U-turn to return – but first in boxing.
Masvidal revealed that the UFC will allow him up to three boxing fights before returning to the Octagon.
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And the veteran former backyard fighter has done everything he can to avoid being the latest MMA fighter exposed in the boxing ring.
“I really spent a lot of time changing ships,” Masvidal explained.
“Because from the beginning I didn’t want to be an MMA guy getting into boxing and doing my MMA training to complement my boxing.
“No, I wanted to do what boxers do. I wanted to box like they’re doing, get into that routine. So I came here to Las Vegas.
“I’ve been here for about six months just boxing from the time the sun rises until the sun sets.
“We’re just doing everything that boxers do and I think it’s paid a lot of dividends.
Nate has to pay for everything, you know, his face has to pay all these bills.
Jorge Masvidal
“I learned a lot, I changed a lot of things in my posture, in the way I move, in my footwork.
“Even the way I throw punches because I’m not worried about takedowns and kicks now.
“So the position, the strategy, the movement and the efficiency are a little different now.
“And I’m glad I had more time to focus on my craft and start working on the pure fundamentals of boxing.”
Masvidal set up shop in Jorge Capetillo’s gym in Eastside Vegas and found himself facing boxing royalty when Canelo Alvarez stopped by.
“I respect Canelo, even more outside the ring than inside, because the guy is a very good and humble person,” he said.
“He will say hi to everyone in the room. He will do anything to shake everyone’s hand.
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“There are 200 fans out there, he’s going to take pictures with all of them, how he treats his team, how he treats his coaches.
“And I’ve seen it a few times, he’s a really solid, good guy, and I really like that about him.
“Then he took the time to watch me train, it took five minutes. He took away his moment because he’s getting ready to lose weight and do his shit.
“And bro, nobody wants to talk in these times. I’m a fighter, I’ve been fighting for 20 years, as I’ve been losing weight and stuff like that.
“I’m just worried about me, focused on me and he took the time, the time to come and give me five or seven minutes of like, ‘Look, this works for boxing, this doesn’t work. If I were you based on what I just saw, I would do this, forget that and that’s how I do it. Maybe you want to try it like this, maybe you want to try it like this.
“And I just thought that was the coolest thing ever.
“I have the face of boxing and a member of boxing’s elite, pound for pound, giving me straight insights into his heart and what made him successful and what I could use to become successful.
“So I thought this was beyond amazing.”
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This story originally appeared on The-sun.com read the full story
