Midnight Mania! Curtis Blaydes analyzes potential Jon Jones match up: ‘If we both connect, he’ll go backwards’

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Curtis Blaydes has been angling to fight Jon Jones for an awful long time.

Unfortunately for “Razor,” he’s the odd man out in the recently booked Heavyweight title fight. Since Francis Ngannou has vacated the UFC throne, UFC opted to finally book Jones’ long-awaited Heavyweight debut against Ciryl Gane at UFC 285 in March, another man Blaydes has been trying to meet inside the Octagon. It’s also worth noting that Jones left Blaydes off his Heavyweight hit list, despite the fact that Blaydes is an elite contender at the top of his game.

Still, Blaydes is eyeing the match up. While appearing on “Food Truck Diaries” and chatting with former UFC Heavyweight Brendan Schaub, Blaydes broke down his perceived advantages over Jones and also revealed a bit about his potential strategy.

“Just the difference between 215 or 197 compared to heavyweight, when you’re on the bottom, when he’s underneath me, which I do plan on him being underneath me, he’s gonna use a lot more energy than what he’s used to using,” Blaydes said (via MMAJunkie). “I think that’ll be the biggest factor.”

He continued, “Size, power, explosiveness. He’s not the most explosive guy. He’s very creative with the striking, but he’s not very explosive. I think he’s more well rounded, but the wrestling, the size, the explosion, and power, I think jab for jab, if we both connect, he’ll go backwards, and I won’t.”

At the moment, Blaydes remains unbooked. There are rumors that he could fight surging knockout artist Sergei Pavlovich next, and a third consecutive win over a top-ranked killer like the Russian could really solidify his argument for a title shot.

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