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Leaving my kids for training camp is tearing me apart but Nate Diaz will pay for it, says Jorge Masvidal ahead of fight
The MMA star also bumped into boxing royalty in the gym
JORGE Masvidal has spent five painful months away from his children - something he vows to make Nate Diaz pay for.
The fighter on Saturday faces Diaz in a boxing rematch - five years on from his stoppage win in the MMA cage.
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Masvidal - still under contract with the UFC - has been granted special permission to cross over to the ring before returning to the octagon.
And he has left no stone unturned by leaving his home in Miami to train over 2,000 miles away in Las Vegas.
But the bout has faced several months of delays - leaving Masvidal with greater time to hone his newfound skills.
Although it has come at the harsh cost of being away from his two daughters and young son.
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"Nate's got to pay for everything, you know, his face has to pay all these bills," Masvidal told SunSport.
“Yeah, it sucks, man, because I always have my kids are like my support system like I got my ass kicked in the gym today, I'm gonna hang out with my kids and we'll go eat some f**king pizza and this and that and tomorrow will be better, you know.
“But I haven't had that support system here. So it's, it's been tough at times."
Masvidal, 39, has spent weekends with his kids while also making the most of phone calls when away from them.
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“A lot of FaceTime calls," Masvidal said.
"I went to visit them for a couple of weekends and they just recently left. They were here for two weeks with me.
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“Now after the fight I go get them again for another two weeks. So, it'll be like that. We have the time divided 50/50 pretty much.
“So during the camp here most of the time I wasn't collecting on my time, but I was still able to see them on weekends and stuff like that, you know.
“But I just had to replace it with something, you know, because it was tearing me apart in the beginning.”
Masvidal enjoyed a meteoric rise in 2019 by knocking out Darren Till in London and then scoring the quickest UFC knockout of all time.
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He followed up his five-second flying knee finish of Ben Askren with a stoppage against Diaz.
But Masvidal then suffered four losses on the spin, most recently against Gilbert Burns in his backyard in Miami in April 2023.
It briefly spelled the end of his career before he announced a U-turn to return - but first in boxing.
Masvidal revealed the UFC will allow him up to three boxing bouts before he comes back to the cage.
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And the veteran former backyard brawler has done everything to avoid being the latest MMA fighter exposed in the boxing ring.
"I’ve really put in a lot of time to switch over the craft," Masvidal explained.
“Because from the start of it, I didn't wanna be an MMA guy going into boxing and taking my MMA training to supplement my boxing.
“No, I wanted to do what boxers do. I wanted to box how they're working out, get into that routine. So I came here to Las Vegas.
“I've been here about six months now just doing the boxing thing from the moment the sun goes up till it goes down.
“We're just doing whatever boxers do and I think it's paid off a lot of dividends.
Nate's got to pay for everything, you know, his face has to pay all these bills.
Jorge Masvidal
"I've learned a lot, I've changed a lot of things about my stance, how I move, my footwork.
“Even the way I throw punches because I'm not worried about takedowns and kicking right now.
"So the standing, the strategizing, the moving, the efficiency is a little different now.
“And I'm glad I've only had more time to focus on my craft and just get to work on pure boxing fundamentals.”
Masvidal has set up shop at Jorge Capetillo's gym in Eastside Vegas and found himself running into boxing royalty when Canelo Alvarez stopped by.
"I respect Canelo, even more so outside of the ring than inside because the guy is such a f**king good, humble person," he said.
“He'll say hi to everybody that's in the room. He'll go out of his way to shake everybody's hands.
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“There's 200 fans outside, he'll take pictures with all of them, how he treats his staff, how he treats his trainers.
“And I've seen it a couple times he's just like a f***ing solid and good dude and I really like that about him.
“Then he took time to watch me spar, he took five minutes. He took out of his moment because he's getting ready to cut weight and do his s**t.
“And bro, nobody wants to talk in those times. I'm a fighter, I've been fighting for 20 years once I'm cutting weight and s*** like that.
“I'm just worried about me, focussed about me and he took the time, time to come over and give me five-seven minutes of just like, ‘Look, this works for boxing, this doesn't. If I were you from what I just saw, I would do this, forget about that and this is how I do it. Maybe you wanna try it like this, maybe you wanna try it like that.’
“And I just thought that was the f***ing coolest thing ever.
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"I got the face of boxing and one of boxing's pound-for-pound elite giving me straight-up pointers from his heart and what made him successful and what I could use to make me successful.
“So I thought that was beyond f***ing amazing.”
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