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Jorge Masvidal remains one of the most polarizing and entertaining figures in UFC history.
Emerging from the Miami street fight scene, he is famous for his larger-than-life personality and holds the record for the fastest KO in UFC history.
Finishing his career with a record of 35-17, he is known for his signature flying knee move and boxing skills. He cultivated the personality of “Gamebred”: someone willing to fight anytime, anywhere.
Jorge Masvidal in his welterweight fight during the UFC 287 event on April 8, 2023, at the Kaseya Center in Miami, FL. (Alejandro Salazar/PxImages/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
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However, he is not simply a fighter in the field of mixed martial arts, but an outspoken voice of the Latino right and a vociferous defender of President Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
He’s also been in the headlines lately due to rumors of a Trump-backed UFC event taking place at the White House on the South Lawn, possibly featuring a fight between Masvidal and legend Conor McGregor.
He recently spoke with Pak Gazette Digital at the Hispanic Prosperity Gala at Mar-a-Lago, an event he co-hosted.
Masvidal attributes his involvement in politics to having seen firsthand the effects of communism through his family history:
“Me personally, my dad being Cuban, escaping from that f—— horrible and tyrannical government, seeing what they have done with Venezuela… let’s not let what happened there happen here, which is getting crazier than ever, so I just want to thank my Latin people for making the right decision, knowing what communism, socialism is like, even though they try to disguise it with bulls—, we know it because we have already seen that horror. I have lived that horror movie many times in my life thanks to me family, so I just want to say fuck, communism!
Jorge Masvidal reacts after his decision loss to Gilbert Burns of Brazil in a welterweight bout during the UFC 287 event at Kaseya Center on April 8, 2023 in Miami, Florida. (Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images)
Masvidal believes Trump should end the communist regime in Cuba, as he did in Venezuela during the January 3 operation in which President Nicolás Maduro was captured and extracted to the United States to face drug trafficking charges.
“One hundred percent in Cuba… I can tell you it should have been done 60 years ago. People need it. They have needed it. They are dying, literally, there. We need this. We need this for Cuba.”
Masvidal expressed a nuanced position on Trump’s hardline immigration policies.
“Violent criminals, yes, delinquents, bad people, scammers, get rid of them. I just wish for the good, hard-working Latinos who maybe committed a crime when they got here, served their time and then, 20, 30 years later, are good citizens,” he told Pak Gazette Digital.
UFC’s JORGE MASVIDAL SHEDS LIGHT ON CUBA, CALLS COUNTRY A ‘MURDER MACHINE’
“I would like a lot of those people not to be deported. I’m Latino too, most of my family is still undocumented, so it’s a difficult situation, you know? I want all my Latinos who are really doing well here, paying their taxes, to be able to stay or find a program that can bring them back quickly. That’s what I would like to see, but all the violent people have to be removed.”
Masvidal can point to the moment when he became politically active.
Jorge Masvidal poses on the scale during the official weigh-in for UFC 287 at the Hilton Downtown Miami hotel on April 7, 2023 in Miami, Florida. (Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images)
“It will be my father escaping Cuba at a young age and sitting me and my family down telling me the stories. My aunt from Guantanamo Bay… the closest town. It’s riddled with landmines… My aunt risked her life to cross. A mine exploded and blew out her teeth.”
“And these are the people who guided me throughout my life, so it wasn’t one particular incident, but it was just a life education. [seeing] what communism looks like… it is a cancer, the parasite in any society where it lands. Be prepared to fight him if he ever comes to the United States. And that’s basically it.”
