Jorge Masvidal: From The Streets of Miami to Sengoku, Bellator And Beyond

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Searching his name on YouTube yields a list of fight clips from his 20-fight professional career.

One clip, however, stands out from the rest – ironically, it is not a showcase of his constantly improving MMA skills that have molded him into a force to reckon with in the lightweight division.

One of the dozens of street fight footages from the streets of Miami that has catapulted Kimbo Slice to infamy, the clip shows the young Masvidal scrapping with a Slice protege, “Ray.”  Despite a size disadvantage, Masvidal picks apart and ultimately knocks out his opponent with crisp punches to the body and the face.

His days as a street brawler is long gone and he is now a skilled, hard working professional fighter.  Nevertheless, the grit he has cultivated in the rough-and-tumble streets of Miami forms the foundation of his “gamebred” fighter identity.

Over the course of his career, Masvidal has taken his street-bred fighting style beyond South Florida, as far away as Russia and Japan.

Since making his professional debut in 2003, Masvidal has compiled a 17-3 record with notable wins over Joe Lauzon, Yves Edwards, and Ryan Schultz.  After building his career in the local circuits, he has gone on to fight in Bodog, Strikeforce, Sengoku, and now Bellator Fighting Championship.

On May 1, he will fight in the semi-final round of the Bellator FC’s lightweight tournament against Toby Imada.

An aggressive fighter with crisp, powerful strikes and well-honed killer instinct, Masvidal boasts nine knockouts in his seventeen wins.  As a member of the elite American Top Team, he has benefited from the quality instruction and training partners at the camp, as he continues to shore up every aspect of his MMA game.

His strength lies primarily in his stand-up and ground-and-pound: He is guaranteed to step into the ring or cage with the intent to punish his opponent.  While he has no glaring hole in his game, training regularly with jiu jitsu black belts and other highly accomplished grapplers at ATT has helped him fortify his MMA arsenal.

Along with DREAM standout, Eddie Alvarez, Masvidal has been billed as the Bellator’s blue-chip prospect.  In the first round of the Lightweight tournament, he validated the lofty expectation with an easy victory over a tough veteran, Nick Agallar.

With the remainder of the Bellator tournament and a continued tenure with Sengoku on the horizon, Masvidal’s future beams with promise and excitement.

If all goes according to Bellator’s plan, he will collide with top talent, Eddie Alvarez, in the tournament final: Expect a fight-of-the-year caliber performance from the two young stars.

Also, in a recent Q&A with USA Today’s Sergio Non, Masvidal stated that he expects to return to Sengoku later in the year.

His last few opponents willingly engaged with him on his feet, allowing his stand-up to shine.  He easily dismantled Nick Agallar and Ryan Schultz with TKO in the first round while taking a more calculated approach with Seng Hwan Bang en route to a unanimous decision victory.  As his fights attest, when on the feet, he is capable of incinerating his opponents with his fistic firework.

An intriguing test for Masvidal will be an opponent with strong wrestling and submission skills to force him out of his dominant territory.

Having only been submitted once, Masvidal can hold his own on the ground, as he demonstrated against Joe Lauzon, who, at the time of the fight, held 8-0 record with all the wins delivered via submission.  Ever since his loss to Paul Rodriguez in 2005, no fighter has truly tested Masvidal’s grappling prowess.

A fight against a quality grappler will thus serve as a measuring stick for his oft-unheralded ground game and the overall versatility as a fighter.

Sengoku will have no shortage of tough opponents.  However, the likes of Eiji Mitsuoka, Leonardo Santos and Satoru Kitaoka will provide Masvidal with the challenge of facing a strong wrestler/grappler and the opportunity to further scale the lightweight ladder.

The May 1 bout with Toby Imada will just be another step in Jorge “Gamebred” Masvidal’s path from the streets of Miami to the top of the lightweight hierarchy.

As one writer describes it, “Game is the dog that won’t quit fighting, the dog that’ll die in the ring, the dog that’ll fight with two broken legs.”  Combining the gritty, street-bred toughness and top level training at ATT, Masvidal will continue to live up to his moniker: It will only be a matter of time before the MMA world takes note of what “Gamebred” is made of.