UFC heavyweight Curtis Blaydes has denied that his speech impediment is a result of suffering brain damage during his fighting career.
The top contender landed a huge KO of Chris Daukaus on Saturday night to pick up his second win in a row, and cement his position in the promotion's top five heavyweights. But fans were surprised to hear he had a stutter in his post-fight interview.
Some took to social media to question if Blaydes, who has been viciously knocked out three times in his career, twice by Francis Ngannou and also by Derrick Lewis, had the early signs of CTE. Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy is a brain disease often associated with stars of contact sports such as MMA, boxing or American football, and stems from repeated trauma to the head.
But Blaydes squashed the notion that his stutter had anything to do with brain damage in a recent tweet, telling fans "It’s well known by people I regularly engage with or know me from school or outside of MMA that I’ve had a stutter/ speech impediment my entire life. It’s got nothing to do with MMA. Too many idiots running around saying “bLaYdEs SoUnDs LiKe HeS gOt CtE.”
One had asked after watching his post-fight interview at UFC Columbus, where he called for an interim world title fight with Ciryl Gane or Stipe Miocic, if Blaydes had always shown the signs before. They wrote "Has Curtis Blaydes always had a speech impediment or are these early signs of CTE?"
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But Blaydes shot that down, with many fans rushing to social media to praise him for opening up about his issue. One fan wrote "Honestly you sound a lot better and more comfortable on the mic than before in your fights, don't know if you are actively working on it but it has improved a lot. Great win on Saturday!"
Another said: "You’ve come a long way. Honestly your impediment wasn’t even noticeable in your post fight interview," to which a fellow supporter added that they "had no idea he had one prior to this tweet."
Blaydes has beaten a huge portion of top UFC heavyweights, including the No.8-ranked Jairzinho Rozenstruik, No.7 Alexander Volkov and former world champions Junior Dos Santos and Alistair Overeem. He is now eyeing up an interim title shot while former opponent Francis Ngannou recovers from surgery.
