Surging Heavyweight Curtis Blaydes Has Unique Perspective on Stipe Miocic-Daniel Cormier

Ultimate Fighting Championship heavyweight king Stipe Miocic will defend his belt against light heavyweight ace Daniel Cormier at UFC 226 on July 7.

Heavyweight is arguably one of the weaker divisions in the UFC so after Miocic beat Francis Ngannou, as well victories over other top five contenders including Junior dos Santos, Alistair Overeem and Fabricio Werdum, a fight with Cormier -- who previously fought at 205 pounds -- made sense. If Miocic is successful against Cormier, he’ll have a pair of surging heavyweights in the form of Alexander Volkov and Curtis Blaydes waiting for him. Blaydes recently cracked the top five in the rankings after defeating Mark Hunt.

Blaydes was interviewed recently on Submission Radio and gave his thoughts on the super fight between Miocic and Cormier.

“It is a tough one,” Blaydes said. “This is another great match-up. Daniel Cormier, who is I think undefeated as a heavyweight, to put him against, as you said, possibly the greatest heavyweight champion we’ve had, I think it’s a great match-up. I’m going with Stipe. I think it’s going to be a banger. I think it’s going to be five rounds, just like Jon Jones’ last (fight), not his last one against DC but their first fight against each other. I think it’s gonna go like that. They’re both gonna get rocked, they’re both gonna get taken down, they’re both gonna get cut and have bruises and what not, but I think Stipe’s length and his boxing (will be too much). “

The Illinois native revealed that he had trained in the past with Miocic and gave some interesting insight to their exchanges.

“I actually trained with him a couple of years ago, I wrestled with him,” and I’m not gonna toot my own horn, but I think I’m one of the better wrestlers overall regardless of the weight class in the UFC right now, and his wrestling is legit. He is very good.

“On the feet he destroyed me. I was an amateur, this is back in 2013. I’m one of those guys, I’m not gonna lie to you when someone is better. Like, he was leaps and bounds better than me. He was supposed to be, like, at the time he was going up against Gabriel Gonzaga. So yeah, it would have been weird if they brought me in there and I just started picking him apart. That probably would have been a problem for Stipe. No, he handled me like he was supposed to. But when we wrestled, like I said, pretty back and forth. He would go, (in) I guess an hour practice, he would get two takedowns, I would get two takedowns, or maybe he would get one more, maybe I would get one more.”

Blaydes’ next fight inside the Octagon is against the heavy hitting Dutchman Alistair Overeem in his hometown of Chicago, which is the last fight on his current UFC contract.