Leon Edwards Explains His Side Of Backstage Altercation With Jorge Masvidal
One of the biggest talking points of the year was the aftermath of UFC London in March where Jorge Masvidal and Leon Edwards had a backstage altercation.
Masvidal was doing a post-fight interview following his knockout of Darren Till before he approached a trash talking Edwards with his hands behind his back.
What ensued was “Gamebred” striking the Englishman with a combo (see video) in what has since famously been dubbed as a three piece and a soda.
Later on, Masvidal revealed he only struck him because “Rocky” had his hands up as if he was about to strike him.
But that’s not what happened according to the Birmingham native who essentially claimed if his hands were up, he wouldn’t have been struck.
“I was walking past because leading up to the fight, I was like whoever wins this main event, I want next,” Edwards said on BT Sport’s Open Mat. “So backstage, I was walking. He was doing his interview. I was like ‘me and you, July?’ He was like ‘what did you say?’ I was like ‘we’ll go in July?’ Then he started walking over, hands behind his back. I started walking towards him as well and then he threw shots.”
“Come on, if I had my hands up, how would he touch me? … His day is coming. We’ll see who the harder man is and we’ll go from there.”
Frustration
It would seem that the pieces were in place for the UFC to book Masvidal against Edwards next. However, Masvidal was instead booked to face Ben Askren at UFC 239 which takes place July 6.
Edwards, meanwhile, has no planned opponent and spoke of his frustration towards the ranking system and how someone like Askren could get that fight over him.
“It’s frustrating to say the least,” he explained. “Ben Askren has come in, he had one fight in the UFC, now he’s ranked number five or six. It was like a fluky win as well. It is frustrating to see people coming in…all the hard work I’ve done means nothing. I’ll keep chipping away, focus on myself. Like I said, my dream is to become world champion. I’ll focus on that.”
While Edwards is on a seven-fight win streak, none of his wins were over top 10 opponents. Hopefully, he can get a high-ranking opponent next as there’s no question he deserves it.
We could then even finally see him and Masvidal settle things in the Octagon.
