Glendale — It wasn’t a fight that went over well with fans, but Curtis Blaydes had his dominant wrestling on full display at Noche UFC, where he earned a decision victory over Waldo Cortes-Acosta.
It was a bounce back fight for both men, with Blaydes (20-6, 1NC) entering off a loss to Josh Hokit, and WCA having dropped a fight to Alexander Volkov. Speaking with Cageside Press and other media outlets following the fight, “Razor” Blaydes opened up on what surprised him in the fight.
“The lack of aggression. We expected him to be way more aggressive. We prepared, we sparred. I had all my sparring partners blitzing me, blitzing me. I would swap out guys in the middle of rounds,” explained Blaydes. “We expected him to just non-stop, non-stop. Maybe we underestimated how effective my wrestling fakes were. He gave me a lot more space than I was expecting; I didn’t take advantage of it the way I really should have, but again, can’t have a perfect fight.”
Blaydes plans to go back, review footage of the fight, and “look at the places I could have capitalized, I should have capitalized. I wish I had gotten a lot more ground n’ pound, he did a good job of holding onto my wrist, which is legal.”
What’s not legal is holding the fence, something he noticed Cortes-Acosta doing. Luckily, the ref swatted the Dominican’s hand away. “Everyone’s been doing that. Hokit did it also, the last fight. I’m glad Big Dan was on it, he was able to see it. We gotta be more attentive to that, because that can change the whole flow of a round, of a fight. But I’m glad that he was on it.”
Next up, Blaydes is looking to fight up the rankings. Not that he’s entirely sure who’s up there. That’s because the #11-ranked fighting in the AI-driven “Meta Rankings” (the media-voted rankings at least have Blaydes at #6) has stopped paying attention to them.
“I think I deserve a top five opponent. There’s a lot of these younger guys, no disrespect, I don’t know a lot of their names. I know Mario Pinto, couple other guys. They’ve slowly been coming ahead of me, I’m like, ‘why am I sliding?’ Yeah, I lost to Hokit, but it was a great fight. Even Hokit’s been sliding. Rizvan [Kuniev] is ahead of me, I beat him. He gets top 5 after he beats Tyrell Fortune, he wasn’t even ranked. Mario Pinto gets top 10 after he beats Ryan Spann, who isn’t even a real heavyweight. The rankings don’t mean a damn thing to me no more. I no longer respect them, I’m not even going to look at them.”
While Blaydes doesn’t know who’s ranked where, he added, “I hope to get a top 5 opponent next.”
As for people who picked against him based on Blaydes’ fight with Josh Hokit, “I hope you lost money. I hope all you lost money,” he exclaimed.
Watch the full Noche UFC post-fight press conference with Curtis Blaydes above.