Curtis Blaydes was fired up after the judges read his unanimous decision victory over Justin Willis at UFC Nashville.
Not usually one to show much emotion, things got personal for Blaydes ahead of his heavyweight tilt against Willis last Saturday which is something he’s never experienced before.
“I was happy with [the performance] but I wish I would have got some elbows in. Maybe some blood.” Blaydes told MMANews. “Overall I was happy with it. I was actually surprised he wasn’t that aggressive, I thought he’d be a lot more aggressive than he was.”
Blaydes (11-2) avoided two-straight losses for the first time in his career after putting on a dominant performance against the AKA product. Prior to these two squaring off, Blaydes claims he almost came to blows with a friend of Willis’ during fight week.
“I guess like a buddy of his or whatever. He popped up at the hotel and challenged me to a fight. Obviously I’m not going to fight him because it’s Wednesday of fight week. He was doing a lot of extra activities just to try and get in my head. I thought that was a sign of his weakness and insecurities. I’ve never had to experience anything like this, I’ve never talked smacked to any of my opponents. None of my opponents have talked smack to me. This is the first contact I’ve had with anything like this. I mean I go into my fight with blinders on. Yeah it pissed me off in the moment when it happened but once we got into the octagon I forgot everything.”
Relativity healthy coming out of his fight, Blaydes is aiming for a summer return to the octagon and has two potential opponents in mind.
“I’m looking at the July International Fight Week card [UFC 239] It would be Stipe [Miocic] or Junior [Dos Santos]. I think [Cormier] really wants that Brock Lesnar fight and I get that. That’s the money fight he’s earned and deserved. I don’t’ know if Brock is ever going to be clean enough to get that going.”
