Opinion: The Unluckiest Man in MMA

I've been a fan of Curtis Blaydes since 2018. I like his aggressive style of wrestling, including high-amplitude suplexes and constant mat returns. I appreciate his smart approach to fighting, seeking to minimize the damage he suffers in battle, and showing steady improvement each time out. Watching his bouts is almost always fun and interesting. They feature brutal, visceral violence as well as cerebral strategy and technique, both of which I love equally.

And yet, Blaydes has been plagued by a dark cloud, as no other fighter has had more rotten luck. No matter what he does or how much he improves, Fate has it out for him.

Let's go back to 2018. Blaydes began the year with a bang, first defeating Mark Hunt via one-sided decision in February and then facing top contender Alistair Overeem in June. Despite the problems that Overeem presented for grapplers, Blaydes avoided the danger of his clinch and close-range striking to repeatedly take him down. Inside the guard, he delivered bone-crushing, blood-splattering elbows that caused the referee to save Overeem halfway through the final stanza. At this point, Blaydes was widely talked about as a potential challenger for the heavyweight title. Daniel Cormier, the champ at that time, praised Blaydes when talking about his next opponent.

Unfortunately for Blaydes, through no fault of his own, he would be the victim of one of the most criminally idiotic matchmaking decisions in MMA history. It was so horrid that it spawned my first column calling out Sean Shelby and Mick Maynard, the Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum of MMA, though sadly, it would be far from the last. Blaydes, the potential title challenger, rematched Francis Ngannou, who had beaten him in his UFC debut, the very definition of a lose-lose scenario. Ngannou at the time had dropped two in a row, including one of the worst fights in UFC history against Derrick Lewis. He had lost his confidence and the blueprint for defeating him with grappling had supposedly been demonstrated by Stipe Miocic. Thus, Blaydes was a big favorite against Ngannou despite the result of their first meeting. Had Blaydes won, it would have done nothing at all for him. But of course, those who watched their first fight and seen how easily Ngannou exploded from the bottom knew it was a horrible stylistic matchup for the wrestler. Moreover, going 0-2 against Ngannou would kill Blaydes as a title challenger for the foreseeable future while still doing little for Ngannou, who needed multiple wins to even bring up such a conversation. Sadly, that's exactly what happened. Ngannou's victory over Blaydes did little for him, but it extinguished Blaydes' title hopes for a long time.

Undeterred, Blaydes went back to the grind. He had a highly impressive four-fight winning streak over the next two years, battering Justin Willis from pillar to post for 15 minutes, stopping Shamil Abdurakhimov and perhaps most impressively, showing major improvements in his striking against former champion Junior dos Santos, knocking him out on the feet early in Round 2. Blaydes' last fight was a difficult one against Alexander Volkov, a highly skilled 6-foot, 7-inch striker whose grappling keeps getting better and better, and who almost no one looks good against. Blaydes won the first three rounds with wrestling but discovered that while his cardio was great for 15 minutes, it wasn't enough for 25, holding on for the final two stanzas to garner the close, deserved decision.

Unfortunately, bad luck struck again two years after it had against Ngannou. Nor can I fault the matchmakers; at the time, Blaydes, on a four-fight winning streak, against Lewis, on a three-fight winning streak, was a reasonable contenders' duel, with the winner going on to face Ciryl Gane for the interim belt. Blaydes was the heavy favorite against Lewis and for the first round, he justified it. With Lewis worried about takedowns, Blaydes showed off his quality striking to shellack him with blows. It was an embarrassment of riches, as Blaydes could continue to beat Lewis up standing, which could have led to a finish in another round or two, or else taken him down.

However, with fighters who possess the gargantuan punching power of Lewis, which he carries through an entire match, no matter how beat-up or tired, danger is ever-present, as Lewis’ fight with Volkov emphatically demonstrated. Blaydes may also have felt the pressure to be entertaining and get the finish, as the UFC is generally not fond of wrestling-heavy contenders. Regardless, Blaydes dipped his head a little and Lewis timed one of the most beautiful uppercuts in heavyweight history. Had they fought 10 times, Blaydes may have won eight or nine, but this just happened to be one of the cases where Lewis triumphed. Once again, Blaydes was the victim of a big knockout in a manner that showcased the unfairness and cruelty of the sport.

Blaydes, to his credit, responded with another impressive three-fight winning streak against contenders, giving another knockout artist in Jairzinho Rozenstruik no chances en route to a decision triumph, knocking out overmatched Chris Daukaus on the feet and then being the beneficiary of someone else's misfortune for a change, as Tom Aspinall suffered a knee injury 15 seconds into their fight.

Blaydes was then paired with Sergey Pavlovich, who had amusingly appeared on the undercard of Blaydes-Ngannou 2. Moreover, he was yet another example of lousy matchmaking that night, as described in the article linked above.

What happened was a weird amalgamation of all the bad luck Blaydes had suffered previously. Firstly, Pavlovich-Blaydes was mediocre matchmaking, though nowhere near as bad as Pavlovich-Overeem, let alone Blaydes-Ngannou, and not something I would normally devote a column to. Still, there was a better way. Blaydes and Pavlovich are both terrific, relatively young (Pavlovich is 30 and Blaydes 32) contenders in a heavyweight division sorely lacking them. While they were at least both on winning streaks and a victory would benefit either one, why destroy either one of them? You could have one of them wait to face the winner of Jones-Miocic and the other face Gane, with that winner being another challenger. Two great title challengers instead of one.

Additionally, Pavlovich was another bad stylistic match-up, with a lot of similarities to Ngannou: incredibly fast hands, insane knockout power in both fists, throwing furious combinations with ease, and being hard to take down The one saving grace was that unlike the Cameroonian, Pavlovich isn't as good at getting back up, and far more vulnerable to punishment off his back. And lastly, while I'm not suggesting that Blaydes would even win five matches out of 10 against Pavlovich, he would likely triumph in at least a few. It's tough for a wrestler with good, improving striking to figure out when to begin wrestling in a bout, and how much to pursue the takedown. Perhaps recalling the Lewis fight, Blaydes didn't want to go for takedowns in too obvious or early of a circumstance, with a single failed attempt before Pavlovich knocked him out. Still, I can well imagine circumstances where Blaydes gets him down and the fight goes very differently. Never mind that Pavlovich's cardio since bulking up to 260 pounds from the 238 he weighed in Fight Nights Global remains a mystery. Who knows what would have happened if Blaydes had made it to the second stanza?

Thus, it was the third bad break for MMA's unluckiest man. In a more just universe, he would have had at least one crack at the throne by now. Instead, it's back to facing random contenders, with no title shot in sight. If there is any solace, it's that Blaydes appears to be mentally tough and has come back better from each decisive defeat. And at 32 years old, he still has plenty of time to seduce Lady Luck. At this point though, I wouldn't blame him for walking around with pockets full of four-leaf clovers.