Curtis Blaydes has confirmed that he’d be interested in fighting Jon Jones following their recent back and forth.

For many years now Curtis Blaydes has been hovering around the top five of the UFC’s heavyweight division, just waiting for his chance to really break into the title conversation. He’s suffered setbacks against big hitters like Francis Ngannou and Derrick Lewis but aside from that, he’s been fairly consistent – to the point where many are calling for him to get a big name in his next fight.

His most recent outing saw him ‘defeat’ Tom Aspinall due to a knee injury suffered by the Englishman just 15 seconds into their contest. Prior to that, Blaydes had another name reach out to him in a less than positive manner as Jon Jones hit out at the 31-year-old for some remarks he’d made about the light heavyweight GOAT.

Now, Blaydes has used an interview with Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour to clarify his position.

“I don’t think he read everything I said,” Blaydes said. “I think he read the first line and was just like, ‘Ah!’ But all I said was I picked Stipe over Jon Jones, because Stipe has five-round title fight experience at heavyweight. With Jon, he does not. Why does that make you angry?

“I also said, ‘Jon, he hasn’t shown he has one-punch knockout power,’ which isn’t a bad thing. There’s a lot of guys who don’t have one-punch knockout power that have the belt. Khabib, he had the belt. Izzy, does he have one-punch knockout power? There’s a lot of guys that don’t have one-punch knockout power.”

“I don’t understand why he took such offense to what I said, but I’m over it,” Blaydes said. “I don’t feel like I said anything super disrespectful or super aggressive. Maybe he had a few too many drinks that night. I don’t know.”

“I’m like, ‘Bro, you know I’m not tiny,’” Blaydes said. “I don’t know what that was about.

“If they hit me up for Jon, I’m down. I’ll take that fight.”

Quotes via MMA Fighting

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