No longer 'winging it,' UFC Fight Night 96 winner Curtis Blaydes is a new man

PORTLAND, Ore. – Curtis Blaydes got a big wake-up call in his first trip to the UFC octagon, suffering a doctor stoppage loss against Francis Ngannou. At Saturday’s UFC Fight Night 96, Blaydes got his career back on track with a violent, elbow-filled TKO of Cody East.

The heavyweight clash with East (12-3 MMA, 0-2 UFC) was part of the UFC Fight Pass preliminary card ahead of additional prelims on FS2 and a main card on FS1 at Moda Center in Portland, Ore.

Blaydes’ (6-1 MMA, 1-1 UFC) loss to Ngannou was not only an unsuccessful octagon debut, it was also the first defeat of his professional career. The defeat motivated the 25-year-old to leave an unstructured training environment in his native Chicago for the MusclePharm Gym in Colorado.

“I’d just never lost before,” Blaydes told MMAjunkie following his victory. “It rocked my world. I just couldn’t do that again. I figured I’d get to a real gym and get some real training.”

The difference in approach from Chicago to Colorado has been night and day, said Blaydes.

With actual coaching, the sky could be the limit for a fighter who earned his way to the octagon with five knockouts in five bouts.

“Having coaches is everything,” Blaydes said. “They’re coaching you what to do. For the majority of my career, I’ve just gone into fights like, ‘Let’s fight.’ This was the first time I had coaches telling me what to eat, when to eat, when to workout, how to workout, how hard to work out. All of that stuff, it counts.

“I wasn’t self-trained, but we were kind of winging it. It wasn’t uniform, it was more, ‘What do you want to do today? I don’t know.'”

Check out the full video above.

For complete coverage of UFC Fight Night 96, check out the UFC Events section of the site.