Curtis Blaydes responds to Dana White’s comments.
Despite getting the victory over Alexander Volkov two weeks ago, the UFC President wasn’t impressed with Blaydes performance. White believed that all the shit that Blaydes talked heading into his fight against Volkov, he failed to live up to the hype.
Blaydes has finally responded to White’s criticism and the 29-year-old details why he feels that the UFC President doesn’t like him:
“He doesn’t like me for three reasons,” Blaydes said of White during a recent episode of the Luke Thomas Show (transcript by Middle Easy). “A, I speak my mind, he doesn’t like that. B, my style, what I bring to the Octagon. I’m very grappling heavy. And C, because yeah I do believe I don’t get paid what I’m worth and I speak on that.
“So he’s just using this to try to make me feel bad I guess, so I won’t speak out again but it’s not going to work. What’s wrong is wrong and when I have a platform and I’m able to speak on it, I want to speak on it.”
The on-going issue regarding fighter pay has heated up over the last couple of months with UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Jon Jones and Jorge Masvidal being the biggest names refusing to step into the octagon until the company offers them a strong deal.
Blaydes expresses his feelings regarding a union in MMA:
“He knows we’re not getting paid enough and then he takes away the option to get big money out of sponsors because they got the Reebok deal,” he said. “Let’s just do away with the Reebok deal.
“Give us the option to get outside sponsors to cash big money. Give us that. That’s a start. I know this is the taboo word and we aren’t supposed to speak of it, but a union,” Blaydes added. “Every other major sports league has a union, so I think that’s probably the only way for us to really get what we want, but I don’t know how that’s going to happen.”