Jorge Masvidal comments on “trippy” close encounter with Kamaru Usman at hotel

On Monday, UFC welterweight champ Kamaru Usman and his challenger Jorge Masvidal nearly came face-to-face at their hotel in Abu Dhabi.

See this tense moment below:

Close call 😬 #UFC251 pic.twitter.com/t75zOCcH0a

— ESPN MMA (@espnmma) July 7, 2020

Speaking on SportsCenter on Tuesday Night, Masvidal reacted to this near-miss with Usman.

“I didn’t know about it until they showed me the video, and that was pretty (expletive) trippy, man,” Masvidal said (via MMA Junkie). “That was a little surreal, because I have great peripherals, but I just happened to look right at my phone, and I had just gotten my eyes dilated, as well, so I had those funky glasses on. So I really couldn’t see that well and, man, it just happened. …

“The bigger part of me wishes I had run into him. Just had a ‘hello, how are you’ type thing, you know? Nothing crazy.”

Considering the animus between Masvidal and Usman, it’s probably for the best that they didn’t cross paths this week. Masvidal, after all, has made no secret of his disdain or the welterweight champion.

“I’m happy, more than anything, because I get to break this guy’s face, then get paid for it,” Masvidal told ESPN’s Ariel Helwani shortly after the Usman fight was made official. “Have you not seen him speak, how he speaks about everybody? Everything’s just negativity and downplaying people.

“A wise man said this quote to me, and he broke it down in a much better way than I can break it down, but listen: [Some people say] ‘I’m going to dim your light to make mine brighter.’ No, I’m just going to make my light as bright as I can,” Masvidal continued. [Usman has] constantly been throwing disses at me for awhile. I just don’t believe anything he says. I know the coward that he is.”

“I’ve known this guy for quite some time in South Florida. He’s a guy who was coming up, asking for pictures [with me] four or five years ago. Now you’re this thug life guy? I don’t believe it, man.”

Jorge Masvidal agreed to fight Kamaru Usman on just six days’ notice, stepping in when the champ’s originally slated opponent Gilbert Burns tested positive for COVID-19.

Who do you think will come out on top when they collide at UFC 251?