The style of one UFC Baku fighter hasn’t always impressed UFC CEO Dana White.
White’s promotion touches down in a new country this Saturday night, as the latest UFC Fight Night takes place in Azerbaijan.
Headlining the debut event in the nation’s capital city of Baku will be a light heavyweight clash between Jamahal Hill and Khalil Rountree Jr.
A number of other notable names have made the trip to compete, including a top-five heavyweight contender who hasn’t always seen eye to eye with the UFC higher-ups.
Dana White laid into Curtis Blaydes after grappling-heavy UFC main event
Before the important headliner at 205 pounds and hometown fight for Rafael Fiziev in the co-main event, Curtis Blaydes will look to reignite his heavyweight title ambitions.
‘Razor’ has lost two of his last three, most recently in competition for interim gold. Blaydes was knocked out by Tom Aspinall in one round at UFC 304 last year.
With that result in mind, Blaydes will need to make a statement against newcomer Rizvan Kuniev in Baku. In that regard, he’d perhaps do well to avoid the performance that saw his hand raised back in June 2020.
Blaydes defeated Alexander Volkov in the UFC Vegas 3 headliner, but the manner of his victory – a dominant five-round wrestling display – left White less than pleased.
“Curtis Blaydes has the wrong attitude, as far as I’m concerned,” White said during his post-fight press conference.
“I don’t have anything against the kid at all…(but) when you talk sh-t like he talked this week, you better come in and whoop somebody’s ass when you talk sh-t like that.
“When you talk the sh-t that he talked and perform like he performed tonight, you look stupid,” White added.
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Curtis Blaydes didn’t care about Dana White’s ‘disrespectful’ criticism
Judging by his response, though, Blaydes likely won’t be put off replicating that performance inside the Octagon.
Speaking to Ariel Helwani for ESPN following his win over ‘Drago’, Blaydes slammed White for the way in which he talks about his fighters.
“You shouldn’t be disrespectful about how the win happened. That’s one thing I don’t understand,” Blaydes said.
“Why do you bash your fighters who are actually legit, who can be future champions? You can hate me. You can hate my wrestling. You cannot deny I am on the path to being a champion.
“Why bash me? I don’t understand that,” Blaydes added.
Blaydes has no doubt impressed the UFC boss more since then, having collected performance bonuses for his knockout wins over Chris Daukaus and Jailton Almeida.
He’ll now look to do the same in a risky Baku matchup against a debuting fighter who is largely unknown to the MMA masses.