Curtis Blaydes battles through nasty facial cut to win UFC 266 fight

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Curtis Blaydes battled through a nasty cut underneath his right eye to defeat Jairzinho Rozenstruik via unanimous decision in their heavyweight fight on Saturday night at UFC 266.

Blaydes received the same score on each of the judges’ scorecards, 30-27. It was "Razor’s" 15th victory over his professional MMA career and his first since defeating Alexander Volkov via decision in June 2020. He previously lost to Derrick Lewis this past February via knockout.

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There were no knockdowns during the Blaydes-Rozenstruik fight. Rozenstruik caught Blades with a flying knee in the second round. Blaydes managed to eat the knee, stay up on his feet and take Rozenstruik down onto the mat. During the intermission, there was a brutal cut under Blaydes’ eye.

It appeared Blaydes had a tough time seeing in the third round but kept Rozenstruik on the mat.

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Blaydes hit more than 59% on his strike attempts and had three takedowns. It was those statistics that helped Blayes win the fight.

As far as his next opponent, Blaydes said he would want the winner between the rumored fight between Francis Ngannou and Ciryl Gane, Stipe Miocic or Jon Jones.

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Blaydes entered the bout as the No. 4-ranked heavyweight fighter in UFC. He’s never gotten a title shot and five wins out of his last six fights might be able to put him in the title picture.