Despite Cancellation Scare, Jorge Masvidal Maintains Largely Positive View of USADA

Over the weekend, Jorge Masvidal was on edge as his headlining date with Nate Diaz at UFC 244 teetered on the brink of cancellation.

Diaz announced on his own that he was out of Saturday’s welterweight fight at Madison Square Garden due to a failed drug test, but USADA quickly issued a statement revealing that the Stockton, Calif., native would be cleared to compete because the anti-doping violation provided “no appreciable performance enhancing or therapeutic benefit.”

Just like that, the battle for the “BMF” championship was back on, but not before Masvidal had to endure a brief roller coaster of emotions after viewing Diaz’s initial tweet.

“That was f—-ing nuts, you know?” Masvidal said during a conference call. “I was like, ‘What the f—k? Nah, that’s Photoshopped.’ I digged a little harder, and it wasn’t Photoshopped.

“A little bit of anxiety came. Not anxiety in the sense I thought Nate was a cheater, because I never thought he was a cheater. Just the uncertainty like, ‘They might pull my fight because of some lab screw-up? Because of some weirdass s—t?’ I don’t want to diss on USADA, either, because I think they’ve cleaned up a lot of the sport, but it’s not 100 percent right yet.”

For the most part, Masvidal believes USADA has leveled the playing field in the Octagon, even when mishaps like the most recent situation occur. However, he also believes there is still room for improvement.

”Let me make this clear: I think USADA has moved my sport forward in certain ways that I couldn’t have imagined,” he said. “There was a time when I was getting fed up with what was going on with the substance abuse, and they’ve chopped down a lot of it. Can it be tighter and better? Yes. But in that sense, I’m a very intense individual where I just always think it could be better and better.

”I could sit down and give USADA my opinions on it, but I want to say they’ve done a great job. Guys like me are shining because of USADA. There was a time when everybody was looking like ‘Captain America’ and ‘Wolverine,’ and the guys that are natural weren’t shining as much. I’m able to send these people into orbit now because the system is at much more of a level playing field. I want to give big kudos to USADA. Can it be better? Yeah.”