Usman and Masvidal Accuse Each Other of Avoiding the Fight

The match between Kamaru Usman and Jorge Masvidal was a potential replacement for the UFC 249 headliner. However, the way it seems, this clash won’t happen on April 18.

After Khabib Nurmagomedov got stuck in Russia, and (probably) won’t be able to face Tony Ferguson, the UFC was in deep trouble about covering up the mess which broke out afterward. Names like Justin Gaethje and Dustin Poirier were in the combination to replace the champion and face El Cucuy, and also, there was a suggestion to change the entire headliner and introduce other fighters willing to accept the fight at such short notice.

Among them were Masvidal and Usman. The first one stated on his Twitter account that he doesn’t have anything planned for April 18, and the other allegedly wanted to meet him as the two had some unfinished business between themselves. The fight for the BMF belt was apparently on, but not for too long. After two days, everything just burst like a soap bubble.

Usman is accusing Masvidal that the deliberately didn’t respond to the UFC calls for confirming the fight and that he backed out of it.

“24 hours go by, and they say well he doesn’t need to fight, doesn’t want to fight,” Usman said. “He hasn’t really been training, that he’s not going to take the fight. That he’s too fat.”

The UFC welterweight champion denies all the speculations which say that it was, in fact, him who didn’t want to accept the contest.

“They’re talking about Usman said no. Usman is saying yes, right now. We can still make the fight. They don’t want that fight.”

Kamaru was also mentioning that he heard lots of excuses from the other side, which claim that Masvidal can’t reduce his weight, that he doesn’t have enough time to prepare for the bout, etc.

Meanwhile, Gamebred didn’t wait too long to respond. He was attacking his rival for lying, saying that he already backed out from a booked fight with him.

“Second time I say yes to the crotch sniffing champ, second time he has a date,” Masvidal wrote, before he attacked Ali Abdelaziz, who is Usman’s agent.

Shut up Ali. Writing tweets for your client. The only thing I’m cutting off is your boys head. Wouldn’t take it on 7 weeks notice he’s not taking it on 2 weeks notice. Clout chasing just like the clout chasing fragile dude.

— Jorge Masvidal UFC (@GamebredFighter) March 30, 2020

After that, it was Masvidal’s agent, Abraham Kawa who stepped in and explained that he and his client wanted and accepted the offer from the UFC, and that it was Usman who caused all these problems.

“Now we accepted again, and he’s saying we turned it down. That’s a damn lie. We got the phone call. We were asked. We knew this was coming. We said absolutely, let’s go,” he said,

The tension about UFC 249 is only increasing. Dana White stated that this event would go on as planned, and obviously, he took this one very personally. For now, the closest solution for him is to take Dustin Poirier as Khabib’s replacement and continue like that.

Still, several fighters are interested in participating, and some of them even agreed to go on one against another. For example, Colby Covington and Tyron Woodley are anxious to meet. They are filling the headlines with trash talks and are asking White to add them to the card.

It could be possible to see one or maybe two fights added without replacing Ferguson from the headliner. Ngannou vs. Rosenstruik is also on the table, according to the insiders. All in all, we are ahead of a couple of interesting days in the UFC.