UFC Heavyweight Contender Curtis Blaydes Wants to Earn Title Shot Based on Performances

thank you to Derrick and Francis, they just cemented me as the #1 contender”

— Curtis Blaydes (@RazorBlaydes265) July 8, 2018

Ultimate Fighting Championship heavyweight contender Curtis Blaydes was an interested observer of the main and co-main events on Saturday night at UFC 226 inside the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Blaydes, 27, is coming off a devastating victory over Alistair Overeem via TKO last month, cementing him as one of the frontrunners for the next heavyweight title shot. The win against Overeem placed him as the No. 2 heavyweight according to the UFC heavyweight rankings.

Although both bouts on Saturday night probably didn’t play out as Blaydes expected them to. It’s safe however to assume he was more pleased with the performances of Derrick Lewis and Francis Ngannou in the co-main event from a personal perspective, as neither fighter put on a show to persuade UFC matchmakers they deserve the next shot.

Blaydes even acknowledged his stock had risen regarding his status in the heavyweight title picture through Twitter.

The main event between the champion Stipe Miocic and his challenger, light heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier, didn’t disappoint with Cormier weathering an early storm by the much-bigger Miocic and then utiliszing his underrated boxing by knocking out arguably the best heavyweight in UFC history.

At the end of the fight, Cormier took the microphone out of color commentator Joe Rogan’s hand and invited World Wrestling Entertainment super star and former UFC heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar into the Octagon, who was ringside for the bout.

During the post-fight press conference, UFC President Dana White confirmed Cormier versus Lesnar would be the next title fight in the heavyweight division, but no timeframe was given. The news didn’t go down well with Blaydes, who slammed the WWE antics at the end of the fight, saying he’d rather let his performances earn him a title shot.

Tired of all the politics like is it even still even about fighting first CM Punk now @BrockLesnar I’ll just continue to grow as a martial artist and become more dangerous and I refuse to resort to that WWE bs fake arguing just to draw in lame ass casual fans pfft

— Curtis Blaydes (@RazorBlaydes265) July 8, 2018