Last night, news surfaced that the UFC had made an adjustment to the UFC 225 main card, adding a featherweight contender bout between Holly Holm and Megan Anderson to the main card, at the expense of a heavyweight contender bout between Alistair Overeem and Curtis Blaydes. This Overeem vs. Blaydes fight, which was first reported by BJPenn.com’s Tom Taylor, will now occur in the final bout of the UFC 225 undercard, per Damon Martin.
UFC 225 moved Holly Holm vs Megan Anderson to the main card with Alistair Overeem vs Curtis Blaydes now on the FS1 prelims pic.twitter.com/LTJEg2xVBL
— Damon Martin (@DamonMartin) May 20, 2018
Shortly after this UFC 225 lineup change was announced, Blaydes piped up on social media to share his opinion on it. From the looks of it, he’s not too bothered by this change, so long as he still gets paid.
http://twitter.com/RazorBlaydes265/status/998041692686225409
“We’re still getting paid right” Blaydes said in a Saturday evening Tweet.
Blaydes then followed up on Instagram, explaining that he doesn’t really care where his bout with Overeem occurs, so long as he gets paid. In fact, he’s actually found a silver lining in this unexpected shakeup.
http://www.instagram.com/p/BjAJswEBRir/
“I’ve got no idea why the change was made, and [to be honest, I don’t care],” Blaydes explained in his Instagram post. “It literally changes nothing, still getting paid and still have a job to do. Only perk is now I get to clock out of work closer to 8 as opposed to like 10ish.”
Curtis Blaydes will enter this fight with an impressive 9-1 overall record. His lone loss occurred in his Octagon debut, when he was pummelled to a doctor stoppage by Francis Ngannou. Since his loss to Ngannou, Blaydes has authored impressive wins over Cody Easy, Daniel Omielańczuk, Alexey Oleynik, and most recently, Mark Hunt, who he defeated by unanimous decision.
Overeem, meanwhile, will be returning to the cage for the first time since he was knocked out by Francis Ngannou in December of 2017. The former Strikeforce, Dream and K-1 heavyweight champion, he is 43-16 overall.
Do you think Curtis Blaydes and Francis Ngannou’s fight belongs on the UFC 225 main card?
This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 5/20/2018.