He shot himself in both feet, losing a pair of decisions to Magomedkerimov. After the second one, he retired. Then one of the most bizarre stories you’ve ever heard in this – or any other sport – was written.
“I retire, I leave my gloves there, I go in the back, and there was probably a 30-minute span between me freaking out, me coming to terms with it and me relaxing, me getting talked down from coach, and I’m getting dressed, I’m about to walk out the building and get some food, and they’re like, ‘Hey, can you go back on?’”
Can you go back on?
Every UFC Takedown By Curtis Blaydes
Magomedkerimov was unable to continue for that night’s second bout, a semifinal tilt against Ray Cooper III, and Curtis was asked to end the shortest retirement in the history of MMA to fight again. By his calculation, it was five minutes from the request to his walk. Yes, just when “Action-Man” thought he was out, they dragged him back in, and before he knew it, he was in a fistfight again, even if he didn’t realize it after all the madness of the previous 45 minutes.
“The first part of that fight, I watched it and I see I dropped him twice, and it’s fine, but I don’t remember the first round of that fight,” Curtis laughs. “I remember in my corner, everything snapping back into focus between rounds. And (coach) John (Wood) was looking at me, and he’s like, ‘Hey, you back?’ I’m like, ‘Whoa, what the f**k’s going on?’ He said, ‘Hey, you’re finally here.’ I guess he’d been talking to me. I’ve had a lot of fights and I’ve never been that disconnected from the situation. I asked him, ‘What’s going on? Did I get hit?’ He said, ‘No, you just haven’t been here.’ I was on autopilot the entire first round.”
