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“He Has an Ego” – Curtis Blaydes Claims Francis Ngannou Can’t Get Past Daniel Cormier

Published 05/23/2020, 4:12 PM EDT

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The heavyweight division has been buzzing with activity lately. A large chunk of it is due to Francis Ngannou. Even after securing four consecutive first-round knockouts, Ngannou still isn’t the No. 1 contender.

The champ Stipe Miocic is currently on the sidelines because he is not able to train properly. Hence, a fight between Ngannou and Daniel Cormier is a possibility. However, UFC Heavyweight Curtis Blaydes thinks Ngannou won’t be able to defeat DC.

Curtis Blaydes has already fought Francis Ngannou twice. The first encounter ended with a doctor’s stoppage at the end of the second round, with Ngannou getting the victory.

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The rematch ended in the first round itself but the outcome remained the same. Having more Octagon experience against Ngannou than the majority of his opponents, Blaydes can point out some glaring weaknesses in Ngannou’s armor.

His biggest drawback is his inability to wrestle. On the flip side, wrestling happens to be the biggest strength of Daniel Cormier.

A former Olympian, Cormier has effectively leveraged his wrestling to make up for the size and reach deficiency that he possesses. Blaydes believes Cormier would do a much better job of maintaining distance than Ngannou’s last opponent, Jairzinho Rozenstruik.

“I know DC is smarter than Jairzinho,” Curtis Blaydes said while talking to theScoreMMA.

“He knows that if I get within range, I need to be grappling. Because the reach advantage is ridiculous between Ngannou and DC. Getting into a rock-em sock-em exchange is not an option for DC. If he [Cormier] goes through that game plan and gets him to the ground, he [Ngannou] would do just like he did against Derrick Lewis.”

Curtis Blaydes explains why Francis Ngannou would never learn to wrestle

Although mixed martial arts encompasses all combat styles, some of them are more effective than others. In recent history, wrestling has emerged as the frontrunner to be the more dominating aspect of fighting. Khabib Nuramgomedov, Daniel Cormier, Jon Jones, Kamaru Usman, and Henry Cejudo have all wrestled at an amateur or professional level.

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Ngannou, on the contrary, was introduced to the world of MMA considerably late than others. Also, he doesn’t have a wrestling background. Curtis Blaydes believes that the biggest obstacle for the Cameroonian in learning to wrestle is his ego.

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“You’re not gonna get better at wrestling at 31 or 32. That’s why everyone who has been a wrestler, outside of GSP cause he’s an anomaly, was doing it since high school. You have to get beaten up.

“At this point in his life, with the ego he has and we know he has an ego cause he refuses to change anything that he works on, he’s not gonna go through what you’ve to go through in a wrestling room to get better,” Blaydes said.

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Blaydes has chalked out the path by which Ngannou can improve his ground game. However, he is sure that Francis wouldn’t take it. It was his inability to wrestle that led to him losing in his first bid to capture the title.

As he gets closer to a second chance, he wouldn’t want to bet all his money on one shot with which he can knock his opponent out. Ngannou has to develop a better overall game to solidify his chances of getting the UFC belt around his waist.

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Written by:

Rishabh Singh

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Rishabh Singh is an MMA author at EssentiallySports since 2020. An engineer in the making, his love for combat sports began by watching Anderson Silva light people up inside the Octagon. When he isn't busy in his technical pursuits, he is an avid reader with a love for sports in general and sporting history in particular.
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