Author Elias Cepeda writes a regular column for The UG Feed; you can find him on Twitter @EliasCepeda.
Curtis Blaydes (13-2-1) has sat near the top of the UFC heavyweight contender rankings for some time, now, after losing just once in his last ten bouts and racking up a bevy of all-time takedown records. With a current three-fight win streak and a fight booked this summer against fellow top contender Alexander Volkov, Blaydes is planning on earning his first world title shot, soon, but he isn’t happy about the backlog at the top of the division.
The UFC has begun holding events again this month after time off due to the ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic, and with their parent company Endeavor undergoing a bit of a revenue crisis while simultaneously saddled with considerable debt, the fight promotion is under a lot of pressure to not just deliver shows, but to do so with as many of their major stars as is possible. World heavyweight champion Stipe Miocic so far seems unwilling to cooperate by breaking shelter-in-place orders to train and expose himself and his family to additional infection risk, so has said he’ll probably wait to monitor the situation and not fight again until later in the year.
The response from the UFC and Miocic’s planned opponent, former two-division world champion Daniel Cormier, has thus far has ranged from impatient, to insulting, and implicitly threatening. With former title-challenger Francis Ngannou having just won his fourth-straight fight, and Blaydes right behind him looking to do the same in June against Volkov, it seems like all the top challengers are in a holding position right now at heavyweight.
With this sad new wrinkle in the years-long feud between Cormier and Miocic developing and the division’s title queue in a bit of a resulting backlog, Curtis Blaydes comes off as a rare honest broker of sorts in assessing the situation. Blaydes tells us this week that he is frustrated by this latest hold-up in the heavyweight title scene, and that he currently blames Miocic for it.
Still, Blaydes has no personal insults for the champion, and says he certainly understands his former sparring partner’s mindset and reasoning for staying out of action, it’s just that the situation is damaging to athletes in his position.
I blame Stipe, he says, plainly. He’s giving us excuses – ‘oh, my coach can’t legally open up his gym.’ If you really wanted to work out and start your camp, don’t you tell me you don’t have a stable of guys who are down to work with you. Don’t tell me that your coach isn’t willing to open the gym and hold pads for you and hold the clock for you and do what he has to do. That’s his job. Don’t you tell me you’re waiting on your coach. He’s waiting on you.
Blaydes says that he believes Miocic is just using savvy business tactics to make as much money as possible before retiring. After all, sometimes championship athletes like Miocic have lucrative endorsement deals that dissolve into the air the moment they lose their title.
I know what Stipe is doing. You get exclusive endorsements, exclusive sponsorships having the strap, Blaydes continues. The Modelo sponsorships and commercials…that’s big money. I heard Stipe’s getting like five hundred grand off of the Modelo stuff. He’s not in a rush to fight. He’s really not. Why would you rush to get back in there, potentially lose? I get what he’s doing. He’s dragging this out as long as he can. I think he only has one more fight left in him. I think he’s trying to rack up all this endorsement money, then go in there and, win, lose, or draw, retire.
Given that all UFC fighters live in constant precarity because of the relatively small portion of total organization revenue they receive, because they are not salaried, don’t enjoy year-round healthcare, and are not pensioned or represented by a union or athlete association, Blaydes certainly understands Miocic’s eagerness to stack as much cash as he can with as little additional risk taken at the tail-end of his career. Blaydes also admires Miocic’s additional career as a firefighter. But that doesn’t mean he’s happy with the champ’s decision-making as it pertains to the fates of contenders like him.
And, I get it, but bro you’re messing with people’s careers who are in their primes, Blaydes reasons. If he’s legitimately more concerned with doing his main job, being a fireman, I understand that and that’s something to be proud of. But if you’re going to commit all the way to that, you need to step back from MMA, relinquish the belt, and then if you want to get back to MMA after all this is over, you do that. But it sounds like he’s not interested in being the champion right now. Just because he don’t want to be the champion right now, he doesn’t want to defend the belt, it means we all have to wait until he feels like being a champion again? Naw, that’s not fair.
Blaydes says that he believes Miocic is frustrated with his own treatment by the UFC in recent years, and so is now intent on focusing on looking out for himself and his family above all else. Again, that seems pretty reasonable to the Team Elevation member.
The 29-year-old cites what he says is a marked change in the way Miocic discusses his own career, as well as his own activity level over the past several years, as the reason he believes the two-time champ is readying to leave the stage.
I’m just listening to how he’s been speaking over the last couple of years, he explains. When he first got the belt he was one of the most active champions I think I can remember in recent history. He was active. But then, once the DC things happened, and he lost, and he saw DC call out Brock [Lesnar] and then DC disrespected him by not giving him the immediate rematch, giving it to Derrick Lewis and then giving it to Stipe, I think he’s a little fed up and a little frustrated by the UFC and the process. I think in his head he’s thinking, ‘I’m going to get my money, I’m going to do one more and let me get out.’ Because he does have a real job and it does have real health benefits and all the other stuff. I don’t blame him, it’s just bad timing for guys like me, who are in the prime of their career, who are ready to go.
As a result of his assessment of the situation between Miocic and Cormier, who himself has all but promised to retire after his next fight, Blaydes seems to believe that if those two can just fight for the third time already there will open up not one but two spots for a vacant heavyweight crown. Once Miocic and Cormier break their tie, if they ever do, the surging contender believes the two legends will both retire.
I think once DC and Stipe fight, whoever wins and whoever loses, they’re both done, he predicts.
They both have other job options. MMA hurts. If you don’t have to fight, why do it? If I had a commentating job with ESPN like DC does, I would’ve been retired. He’s already made a great deal of money. His legacy that DC has left, it won’t be affected in my eyes regardless of if he wins or loses. He’s a hall of fame guy. He never beat Jon Jones but he did beat one of the greatest heavyweights ever, Stipe, he did beat Anthony Johnson twice. I don’t know why he doesn’t retire, now.
As driven for success as he is, Blaydes assures that he himself won’t stay in the sport as a fighter longer than it takes to accomplish his goals and secure his family’s financial future. Fighters staying on too long and continuing to take concussive blows in tragic twilights is a story as old as combat sports themselves, but the dominant takedown artist is determined not to take part in it.
No, I’ll be gone, Blaydes says, then referencing past all-time great opponents of his that he’s faced and beaten. I won’t be like Mark Hunt. I won’t be like, Alistair [Overeem] is a good friend of mine now, but I don’t even think I’ll fight as long as he has. I think he’s taken a lot of damage, he’s had a great career. He’s also another hall of famer who has made a great deal of money and he has other job options. I won’t stick around just for the fans.
