Newly crowned “BMF” champion Jorge Masvidal is confident that he is the man to derail four-weight world boxing champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez.
The 35-year-old Masvidal (professional MMA record 35-13) who beat Nate Diaz to earn the UFC’s inaugural “bad a** [expletive]” belt in November, insisted that his mixed-martial arts background would cause Alvarez problems in the boxing ring, despite the Mexican’s superior technique.
“I consider myself 10 times the athlete [Alvarez] is just because of MMA in general,” Masvidal told the Dan Le Batard Show on ESPN. “All the strength, speed and power you have to generate – to throw one kick is like throwing 10 right hands.
“The energy it takes to wrestle and pick somebody up in the air ... boxing’s just your weight, nobody cares. If I could shift those energy blocks and bring them down to boxing where I'm throwing 80 or 90 punches a round, I feel I could hurt this dude.”
Alvarez (professional boxing record 53-1-2) collected his fourth simultaneously held belt after an 11th-round knockout of Sergey Kovalev for the WBO world light heavyweight title. The DAZN pay-per-view coincided with the Masvidal vs Diaz-headlined UFC event.
The 29-year-old Alvarez has not lost in boxing since facing Floyd Mayweather Jnr in 2013 but has since entered into pound-for-pound best conversations. He has not expressed any intent on an MMA crossover.
“I definitely agree that if [Alvarez] was to go to MMA, it wouldn’t be a challenge because I’ve thrown 10,000 left high-kicks in a month and he’s never done one,” Masvidal, who holds the UFC’s fastest knockout after beating Ben Askren in five seconds in July, said.
“It’s kind of the same thing to boxing, where if I’ve thrown a million jabs, then he’s thrown 10 million because that’s all his focus,” the Cuban-American added.
“That being said, there’s still an element that I could put his a** to sleep ... maybe I don’t hit harder, but I’m definitely bigger.”
Masvidal cited the previous crossover fight between former two-weight UFC champion Conor McGregor and the 50-fight undefeated Mayweather in 2017. Mayweather won by TKO in the 10th round.
“I could definitely make a statement and even it out for MMA, my sport,” Masvidal said. “There [are] still things in boxing that are a part of boxing. I just feel I could beat him up in some areas.
“Does he have a better jab and left hook than me? Yeah, of course. But there’s still elements where I could make it awkward for him, just like Conor did to Mayweather.
"Those are the mountains I like to scale. If I'm going into boxing, I want the best guy they got.”