Jorge Masvidal and Kamaru Usman will fight Saturday at UFC 251 on Fight Island in Abu Dhabi.
According to ESPN’s Ariel Helwani, Masvidal took the fight on extremely short notice after Gilbert Burns had to drop out of the highly-anticipated event. (RELATED: David Hookstead Is The True King In The North When It Comes To College Football)
Gamebred got the all-clear ✈️ #UFC251
(via @arielhelwani) pic.twitter.com/xlruk7gO56
— ESPN MMA (@espnmma) July 6, 2020
Now, Masvidal will take a shot at Usman for the welterweight title. Masvidal had to be rushed to Vegas and was cleared of coronavirus. He will now travel to Abu Dhabi to prep for the fight.
Outside of something major coming up over the course of the next few days, the UFC has scheduled arguably the biggest fight of 2020.
Three massives obstacles out of the way (negotiations, signing, 1st Covid test).
Next:
* Fly to Abu Dhabi
* Take 2nd COVID test at hotel/quarantine/pass
* Take 3rd COIVID test/quarantine/pass
* Make weight Friday
* Take 4th COVID test/quarantine/pass after weigh-ins
* Fight— Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani) July 6, 2020
BTW, these are same procedures every single fighter competing on these Abu Dhabi cards has to go through, so the Usman – Masvidal fight is now in the same boat as the rest of them. That’s as official as we are going to get these days.
— Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani) July 6, 2020
This fight is going to be absolutely awesome. For those of you who don’t know, Masvidal is one of the most electric fighters in the entire UFC.
The man is a content factory on top of being a freak-of-nature athlete. The dude once slammed pizza after a fight while talking about how he’d crush Conor McGregor.
Now, he took a fight against one of the best fighters in the game on a few days notice, and is cleared for coronavirus and inbound to Abu Dhabi.
If this kind of content doesn’t have you fired up and excited for UFC 251, then nothing will.
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You can catch the fight on ESPN+ PPV. The entire card is loaded, and I can’t wait to see what happens.