Curtis Blaydes believes that his loss to Derrick Lewis was self-inflicted and has chalked the setback up to a learning experience to grow from.
At UFC Vegas 19, Curtis Blaydes was expected by oddsmakers and most gamblers to pick up the win over Derrick Lewis in the night’s main event. The most expected path to victory was for Blaydes to be able to use his wrestling to ground and nullify any offense from Lewis. Instead, it was Blaydes who was on his back at the conclusion of the bout, struggling to find consciousness.
Speaking with LowKickMMA.com, Curtis Blaydes went back to the night of February 20 to detail what he believes went wrong for him against Lewis.
“First round, I won it hands down,” Blaydes said. “I was faster, I was early. I was touching him up (with) calf kick, jabs, elbows (and) knees. We were doing what we had discussed, and everything was going great.
“The next round. Sometimes when I get aggressive and I’m hunting the takedown, I forget everything else and I just go into takedown mode. That’s where he got me.”
Blaydes doesn’t have much hope for a rematch since he believes Lewis will be looking for new opportunities at his age of 36. 36 is historically not a very old age for a heavyweight, so the 30-year-old could be disproven in the future. If so and the two do end up meeting again, Blaydes believes that a victory would be pretty much in the bag seeing as how Lewis’ one win out of ten has already occurred.
“I’m not too worried about it,” Blaydes said of the odds of rematching Lewis. “He was the better fighter that night. But, in no way do I think he is better than me. Nine out of ten times I think I smash him. I think he just got me, you know.”
Do you agree with Curtis Blaydes? Do you think he defeats Derrick Lewis 9 times out of 10?
