Both Jorge Masvidal and Leon Edwards are still hot under the collar about their backstage clash following UFC Fight Night 147 on Saturday night.
Edwards in particular is fuming about the fact that Masvidal managed to hit him several times after a brief exchange of words as Masvidal was undertakiing a post-fight interview on ESPN.
“Masvidal’s a rat…I don’t know what f*ckin’ happened,” Edwards told the Eurobash podcast. “He was doing media, I was doing media, we both locked eyes together. I think I said, ‘We’ll go in July,’ or something like that and he said, ‘Maybe July, or maybe not,’ and blah, blah, blah.
“So he started walking over…I’m walking over. He says in that f*ckin’ video that I walked over with my hands up…if I walked over with my hands up I wouldn’t have got touched…he wouldn’t have thrown no shots.
“I walked over and he tried to cheap shot me, that’s it really. He threw a few cheap shots and then he ran behind security. All the security surrounded us and that was it. He’s making out like he’s some kind of bad boy. I don’t understand, how can you find respect in cheap-shotting somebody and running behind security?”
Edwards admitted that the altercation completely overshadowed his split decision victory over Gunnar Nelson earlier that evening.
“100 percent, my focus was on just getting to [Masvidal]. I was shaking in anger, that’s how much I wanted to get to this man. I wasn’t even thinking about what I did, beating one of the best fighters in the world, that went out the window straight away as soon as this little rat tried to cheap shot me. His day will come soon and then we’ll see.”
Now Edwards has his heart set on vengeance and that means that other than a title shot, there’s no other fight he’s interested in right now other than getting the opportunity to be locked in the Octagon with ‘Gamebred.’
“They can’t come to me with nothing else but Masvidal. It’s either Masvidal or a title shot. I’m on a seven-fight win streak in one of the hardest divisions in the sport. I should’ve had a title shot already. Everyone else gets title shots off four or five wins. I’m on a seven-fight winning streak and I’m fighting back-to-back tough guys. It’s either smashing Masvidal’s head in or a title shot for me.”
Meanwhile Jorge Masvidal is also still annoyed about the behind-the-scenes scuffle, though more due to the fact that it took people’s attention away from arguably the most spectacular win of his career – a clean KO victory against recent title contender Darren Till.
“I’m sure (Edwards) is going to come back with a million corny quotes, but just stop, bro, nobody is buying into your act,” Masvidal said on Ariel Helwani’s Show on ESPN. “You are disrespectful, you go up in my interview, I’m not talking about this guy, not even mentioning him in any shape or form. But, this moron tries to come in on my interview and punk me, and I am not going to let that happen.
“And now it pisses me off that it gets more attention than the Till fight when he doesn’t deserve a click. He doesn’t deserve a view, anything. I know they love the drama, but it’s taking away from my performance.
“So if you are my fan, speak about my performance fighting No. 3 in the world, not some dude that nobody knows backstage. Who is that guy? I’m making this dude famous. We spent 70-percent of my interview talking about some bum.”
Both fighters clearly have had their eye on getting a title shot next, but due to their backstage beef it may very well be that they’ve now positioned themselves to have to fight each other first to establish who will go on to fight for the belt.
