Danny Sabatello praises former teammate Jorge Masvidal’s MMA career, calling him a “real-life gangster” and “the bad motherf****r” following Masvidal’s retirement from the sport.
As Jorge Masvidal prepares to turn the page in his combat life, Danny Sabatello believes that “Gamebred” won the game of mixed martial arts. Masvidal, Sabatello’s teammate at American Top Team, announced his retirement from MMA following a unanimous decision loss to Gilbert Burns earlier this month at UFC 287. The “BMF” champion realized he was no longer the same fighter who had worked his way through a magical UFC run in 2019 and to a pair of world title shots the following year.
Masvidal is an absolute, real-life gangster,” Sabatello said. “If you know him, that’s a fact. He doesn’t really give a s***, which is kind of crazy if it’s in the cage or on the street. That’s a guy that when he says something, you have to listen to him fully, because he actually means it. He’s also the nicest guy and the best teammate. A very loyal teammate. Sabatello recounted, “I remember one of my first weeks at American Top Team — when I didn’t even have a fight yet and I wasn’t really anybody and he was having these massive fights — we were done with our practice and he stayed after for about an hour just to help me, and we didn’t really know each other. But he just did that only to see me get better and to try to help me win fights.
Sabatello is preparing for his own battle this Friday when he faces Marcos Breno at Bellator 294 in Hawaii. “The Italian Gangster” looks to bounce back from his bantamweight grand prix semifinal split decision loss to Raufeon Stots at Bellator 289 this past December. Regarding Masvidal’s long career, it’s Sabatello’s hope that fans and pundits of the sport give the Miami star his flowers.
“A lot of these guys can have one good year, two, three good years in professional fighting, but it’s one thing to be in this game for 20 years and still fighting the top, top guys,” Sabatello explained. “That’s something that really doesn’t happen too much. It’s something that really should be acknowledged. I’m very excited for whatever he has in store next, because that’s a guy that’s always gonna be successful. I don’t care what you say, what he did in that last fight, the guy that he fought [in] Burns is also very good and he stuck in there with him. He hung in there with a really good fighter, and that’s how he went out.”