Curtis Blaydes Believes Stipe Miocic’s Boxing Will Be the Difference in the Daniel Cormier Fight

Kicking off with April, the UFC has an insane line-up of fights that will eventually lead up to a huge UFC 226 card headlined by Stipe Miocic and Daniel Cormier. Rising contender Curtis Blaydes, who is fresh off his win over Mark Hunt, trained years back with the UFC heavyweight champion. While it’s tough to choose, Blaydes believes Miocic has the edge over the Olympian light heavyweight belt-holder.

“It is a tough one. 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 [Miocic]. 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].“

Break the record once? Nahhh I still got shelf space. Who’s next? pic.twitter.com/DSBqWzpGq7

— Stipe Miocic (@stipemiocicufc) January 24, 2018

“On the feet [Miocic] destroyed me. I was an amateur, this is back in 2013 [when I trained with him]. 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. I guess in 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.” — Curtis Blaydes speaking to Submission Radio.

No question Stipe Miocic has great hands and dominating wrestling, which he displayed in his last fight with Francis Ngannou. However, with all due respect to Curtis Blaydes, if he can take Miocic down then so can Daniel Cormier. Still, there are so many questions surrounding the potential fight and nothing will be clear until the cage door closes. That’s why MMA is so awesome because we’ll actual get answers at UFC 226.

3/21/2018.