Jorge Masvidal’s is a tale of street fights to worldwide recognition – he’s a familiar character that hardcore MMA fans have known for many years but who had, until 2019, encountered many trials before finally attaining star status.
The one we nicknamed “Gamebred”, (which means; an animal that has the will to win against all odds, and never back down) finally gained global notoriety at 34 years-old. Many think he should have been recognised earlier in life since he’s a street brawler, from head to toe.
After a 15-year career, he became one of the main fixtures in the UFC. In just a few months his brawling fight style combined with a colourful personality really began to shake the MMA world.
Fighting is in his blood; from a life of street fights in his home town of Miami, to the UFC octagon. If you like the “larger than life” characters of combat sports, you’ll love and easily be able to relate to the Jorge Masvidal story, so after a couple of other intriguing details, let’s dive into 5 of his best MMA finishes (in descending order)!
Masvidal fought for the first time at four years-old. He fought on the streets of Miami to earn money. He slept in his car and under a ring to meet his targets.
That Infamous Day in Kimbo Slice’s Backyard
Masvidal has two (or three) nicknames “Gamebred”, “Street Jesus”, (bestowed when he won in the “BMF” belt against Nate Diaz at UFC 244, Nov. 2019 at Madison Square Garden) and he’s also known as The Miami Street Brawler. Jorge Masvidal has been awarded with Performance of the Night bonuses four times and a Knockout of the Night, twice.
- Vs. Cezar Ferreira — TUF: 21 Finale (July 12, 2015)
- Vs. Donald Cerrone — UFC on Fox: 23 (Jan. 27, 2017)
- Vs. Yves Edwards — BodogFIGHT (July 14, 2007)
- Vs. Darren Till — UFC Fight Night: 147 (Mar. 16, 2019)
- Vs. Ben Askren — UFC 239 (Jul. 6, 2019)
Jorge Masvidal’s first foray into the UFC’s Welterweight division was a memorable one! It took less than five minutes for him to defeat Cezar Ferreira.
Masvidal landed a powerful elbow before securing his win with several punches. Check out the knockout in the very first round performed by “Gamebred” above!
On an awesome four-winning streak by finish in the Welterweight division in 2016, Donald Cerrone arrived to take on Jorge Masvidal.
Unfortunately, the ‘Cowboy’ couldn’t find an answer to counter Masvidal’s striking force. Each of his razor-sharp kicks, caused their expected punishment.
After dropping Cerrone at the very end of the first round, Masvidal tried to finish the job on a ground and pound basis, however the bell stopped his flurried momentum.
A compact bout, it was just a minute into the second round by which Gamebred had truly rung the Cowboy’s bell to signal the end of the match. Following an easily absorbed body kick from Cowboy, he sent a straight punch right out of Miami.
Cerrone got knocked down for the second time, after which he wouldn’t get up with Jorge finishing the job to secure a TKO win.
Thank to this achievement, Masvidal earned a Performance of the Night bonus.
A 22 year-old Jorge Masvidal went up against Yves Edwards in 2007, a fight that he would later go on to reveal he was “scared” of. “I was nervous going into the fight”, said Masvidal in the video above.
However, once the fight started, fear had to be relegated to the back seat. Jorge Masvidal and Yves Edwards fought for close to nine minutes before Jorge came out with the sucker-punch (or literally a sucker-kick).
He struck with a thunderous head kick, threw in a few punches on Edwards’ face, and posed with hands on his cheeks as the crowd acknowledged his knockout. Masvidal had just overcome the biggest fear of his career.
This bout marked the beginning of Jorge Masvidal’s successful comeback to the octagon after a 16-month layoff.
Masvidal started the fight very aggressively sending a blow to Darren Till’s genitals from the first second.
The Briton, surrounded by more than 16,000 of his supporters, got down to a strong start after this little incident by sending Masvidal to the canvas in the first exchanges. A lightning quick knock down only served to wake up “Gamebred”.
Jorge was hitting without apparently hurting Till, but then he finally managed to pull out a powerful left hook to score the knockout. He followed up with a second left then a lethal hammer fist. As you can imagine, this Gamebred-caused upset literally cooled the O2 Arena right down.
Masvidal earned both Performance and Fight of the Night bonuses.
The American obviously still wanted to fight after his fight. While he was giving a post-fight interview backstage, he interrupted the interview to punch Leon Edwards after a heated, few-word exchange before the two men were quickly split up. Following this backstage altercation, Jorge popularized the famous “three piece and soda” as you can see in the video above.
Probably the biggest and fanciest knockout of his MMA career. Jorge had just scored the fastest knockout (of 5 seconds) in UFC history.
As soon as the fight started, Jorge ran and landed a flying knee in an expression of rare violence which caught the temple of his adversary for an immediate KO following it up on the ground with a few strikes.
An incredible performance, especially since before this, Ben Askren had remained undefeated throughout his MMA career with 19 wins under his belt.
Thanks to this win, Jorge earned himself another Performance of the Night bonus.
