UFC heavyweight Curtis Blaydes found himself in Jon Jones’ Twitter crosshairs recently, with the former light heavyweight champion telling him to “Focus on your fight this weekend Tiny, you’ve been rooting against me for years now. I see you. Hating on me won’t propel you into being a champion. Less hate, more work.” On The MMA Hour, Blaydes seemed more baffled than offended by Jones’ latest tirade. “I don’t think he read everything I said.
I think he read the first line and was just like, ‘Ah!’ But all I said was I picked Stipe over Jon Jones, because Stipe has five-round title fight experience at heavyweight. With Jon, he does not. Why does that make you angry?
Blaydes Fires Back at Jon Jones’ “Tiny” Comments: “Maybe He’s Had Too Many Drinks!”
I also said, ‘Jon, he hasn’t shown he has one-punch knockout power,’ which isn’t a bad thing. There’s a lot of guys who don’t have one-punch knockout power that have the belt. Khabib, he had the belt. Izzy, does he have one-punch knockout power? There’s a lot of guys that don’t have one-punch knockout power.
I don’t understand why he took such offense to what I said, but I’m over it. I don’t feel like I said anything super disrespectful or super aggressive. Maybe he had a few too many drinks that night. I don’t know.”
Curtis Blaydes has plenty to focus on at the moment, coming off a TKO win over Tom Aspinall, albeit a disappointing one that came about thanks to Aspinall’s knee giving way only fifteen seconds into their headliner at UFC London.
Blaydes predicted not long ago that he expected Stipe Miocic to defeat Jon Jones in the event that Jones’ long-awaited move up to the UFC heavyweight division comes about. With the heavyweight champion, Francis Ngannou, sidelined by a knee injury of his own, it’s entirely possible that the heavyweights have to compete for another interim title. This is a fact of which Curtis Blaydes is very aware.
“Honestly, I wouldn’t be angry with the interim thing if they do Jon Jones vs. Stipe. At least it gives me a goal, like a trajectory, like, ‘OK, I beat the winner of Tuivasa-Gane, I get the winner of Stipe-Jones, and at least I have an interim belt. And that means I get the guy who has the real belt.’ That’ll be something, and I can live with that.”
Is Curtis Blaydes right about Jon Jones? Let us know in the comments.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUfUY4U-w2M
