Curtis Blaydes appreciates all the love and adoration he’s received after putting a potential Fight of the Year against Josh Hokit at UFC 327, but he can’t help but feel like he should have left Miami with a win.
The back-and-forth slugfest is already being hailed as one of the greatest heavyweight fights in history as Blaydes and Hokit went to war for three rounds, connecting for more than 390 combined strikes. But when the decision was read with Hokit getting the nod with unanimous 29-28 scores
across the board, Blaydes admittedly felt a little dejected by the result.
“I hate to be that guy, I’ve never had a fight like this, but I think I won,” Blaydes told MMA Fighting. “I think I won. I felt like I won round one. Yeah, he rocked me, he got the damage but I also rocked him equally at the end of that round and I got the takedown. Second round, he led the dance in that second round. He was getting the better of a lot of those exchanges. He was throwing combinations. I was throwing ones and twos. I’ll give him the second round. Third round, I give it to me also. I think I landed and I brought just the same amount of forward aggression as he did. I feel like I landed more, especially in the clinch. I feel like the judges did not properly score the clinch exchanges. I feel like I won each of the clinch exchanges. Each one. We did those a few times. I won those. I think that was the difference.
“The kicks, I threw a few and he didn’t throw any and I did attempt to wrestle. I don’t know if you score it for him when I shoot and don’t get it or do you score for me because I’m being aggressive and yeah, I didn’t get it but I am being aggressive. I’m pushing the pace. I think I won rounds one and round three but again, I have to rewatch it and I’ll have a better idea after that.”
As much as he feels like he should have earned the victory, Blaydes can also reflect on his own mistakes during the fight where he got rocked but then also wobbled Hokit several times.
One thing for certain that night — Blaydes absolutely refused to get finished and he swears there was no chance he was going to suffer that fate, especially against somebody like Hokit.
“I know there’s a lot of technical things that I didn’t do right,” Blaydes said. “There’s a lot of times I should have blocked or slipped or rolled but in terms of being a fighter and toughing it out, there were many, many times throughout that fight where I was rocked and I heard someone say it made sense, I stayed in there out of spite. I really did not want to let him get a finish on me.
“This guy who’s been disrespectful to me all week and just all the stuff, I can’t remember everything but I was thinking in my head there were times like no, I’m not going to get this guy have that over me. It’s bad enough that he has the win over me.”
Hokit’s outlandish personality was on display all week long leading up to UFC 327 where his media day appearance included a verbal altercation with both Jiri Prochazka and Carlos Ulberg before taking the dais to deliver a bizarre promo and then leaving the room before answering a single question.
His oddball behavior continued at the pre-fight press conference where he tried to insult Blaydes while constantly pitting out prepared rhymes any time he touched a microphone.
Hokit’s demeanor didn’t even change during the fight as he repeatedly flipped off Blaydes after some exchanges. While Blaydes no-sold Hokit and refused to engage with him whatsoever, he admits that his considerable disdain also played a part in avoiding any kind of handshake, hug or momentary respect being shown after the fight was over.
“I didn’t have that many interactions [with him],” Blaydes said. “I stayed in the Air BNB so our only interactions were at the presser on Thursday, weigh-ins on Friday and then the fight. That was it. It’s hard to respect a guy who flips you off five or six times during [the fight]. What am I going to say to you? Good fight? I do believe it was a good fight.
“Do I regret that? Yeah, I wish I had been a lot more professional about that. What’s right is after a fight like that, you shake hands, you give him dap, good fight, respect and you walk out. I couldn’t bring myself to do it, because I really didn’t like him. So it’s hard to do.”
Blaydes eventually crossed paths with Hokit after the fight when they were both being loaded into an ambulance for transportation to a local Miami hospital for treatment.
The run-in wasn’t all that notable because once Blaydes heard Hokit’s voice, he immediately asked to get moved further away from him so another fight didn’t break out right then and there.
“We both went in the ambulance and I’m ahead of him and I’m on the gurney and you know how big they are. I’m all tight [in there] and they’ve got me all strapped down,” Blaydes explained. “I wasn’t able to turn around and look at him but I heard him say something like ‘Blaydes, why didn’t you just give up? F*ck!’ I think he was trying to make a joke, a jest, but I was not hearing it.
“I told the guy who was wheeling me in like take me away from him. If you don’t, I’m going to hop out of this thing and we might have a round four. Take me out of this, I don’t want to be in the same hallway, the same room, the same wing, take me away from him.”
Despite clearly disliking Hokit before, during and after the fight, Blaydes did confess that he thought maybe they’d share one of those famous post-fight photos together from the hospital but even that didn’t happen.
“I did think that we could do that,” Blaydes said. “But no, he couldn’t turn off the character.”
It turns out, Blaydes wasn’t the only one fed up with Hokit’s behavior by the time UFC 327 came to a close. The veteran heavyweight says he heard from numerous members of the UFC staff as well as others working the event who were effectively rooting for him to win on Saturday.
“I heard from so many of the UFC staff, from the equipment guys, the blue shirts, all the security — no one likes him,” Blaydes said. “No one likes him. I had people on the staff tell me all week ‘beat his ass. We don’t like him.’ I’m like bro, you’re pissing off the blue shirts? What the hell?”
The fight is over now but Blaydes is confident that he’ll eventually face Hokit again one day in the future for a rematch, especially considering the overwhelming praise they’ve reached for the first encounter.
That said, Blaydes isn’t sure that Hokit is going to stick around at heavyweight forever.
Even prior to the fight, Blaydes stated that he felt like Hokit was very undersized for the division, and while his hand speed and durability were impressive, he just doesn’t know if that’s going to lead to longterm success.
“How many fights has he had? Nine? He has good young jaw,” Blaydes said about Hokit. “You do that three or four times, that jaw is going to be gone. I don’t think he can do that at heavyweight a bunch of times. He might be better served going down to light heavyweight. They don’t hit as hard. Yeah they’re faster but he has the wrestling. I don’t know if he can maintain, especially if he wants to fight the way we just did. Like if he uses the wrestling more and relies on that, yeah but again he’s a smaller heavyweight.
“I think long term, if I was his manager or his brother or whatever, someone in his circle, I would be having serious discussions about let’s give it a year or let’s think about going down to light heavyweight.”
