An overzealous fan thought they could get the better of Curtis Blaydes with a prank phone call, but it wound up blowing up in their face.
Blaydes is coming off a knockout loss to Derrick Lewis in the main event of UFC Vegas 19. After controlling the first round, Blaydes telegraphed a takedown in the second and shot straight into an uppercut from Lewis. The mistake not only cost him the fight, but most likely a chance to fight for the heavyweight title in his next bout.
In an interview with James Lynch for LowKickMMA, Blaydes reflected on the loss and the fallout from it, particularly from one fan who thought it would be funny to kick the fighter while he’s down.
The morning after the fight, Blaydes’ girlfriend got a call from an unknown number. Confused, she handed the phone to Blaydes, who answered.
“When he called, it was like 8 AM,” Blaydes said. “It had been a long night -obviously- and he called and I looked at her face she’s like looking at her phone… I’m like, ‘Let me grab it, who is it?’ I see the area code, it’s a Pennsylvania area code. I’m like, ‘We don’t hang out with nobody who lives in Pennsylvania,’ so this is weird. I answer it and -you’ve seen the video- dude is like ‘Hey, you suck! You got knocked the f— out!’ I’m like, ‘Okay?… Bye?”
“I’ll never understand trolls,” Blaydes continued. “I get it, ‘Oh, I got Blaydes to answer the phone!’ But bro, it lasts for a minute, and what do you get from it?”
Whatever the caller thought he would get out of it, he most likely got the opposite. The man ended up having to put his social media accounts on private after being harassed by fans of Blaydes who called him out for his foolish behavior.
“Bro, as an adult, as a realist, you trolling me is going to last two minutes,” Blaydes said. “Then what do you do with the rest of your life? If that’s how you have to get happiness and satisfaction and attention, it’s not going to last very long.”
Lynch mentioned that he had brought up the call on a live stream he hosted, which was seen by a friend of the man. The caller then DM’ed Lynch a video where he claimed that he had apologized to Blaydes. ‘Razor’ said that may have been the case, but he has yet to see the apology himself.
“No, he got blocked, so how could he apologize to me?” Blaydes answered. “He might have apologized and sent the DM, but I can’t open it because I don’t know who he is. He might have been honest there, he might have, but I don’t know.”
The caller, who Lynch said “looks like the Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons,” told him that he though the call would be funny, something Blaydes obviously disagrees with.
“How’s that funny? That’s stupid,” Blaydes said. “You’re too old for that. He’s obviously over eighteen, right? Yeah, you’re too old for that. That’s a dumb answer, ‘I thought it would be funny.’”
As for how the caller ever got a hold of Curtis Blaydes’ girlfriend’s number, that remains a mystery.
“We have no idea,” Blaydes said. “I’ve asked other people that I know who are more technical, who know how to do all this stuff. They don’t know either. Her number isn’t on Facebook, it’s not on Instagram, it hasn’t been publicly posted, I don’t post it… this dude must have done his research. He hacked into a database, something, I don’t know. He put energy into this, which is really weird.”
At the end of the day, Blaydes is able to laugh the incident off and the caller ended up getting his just desserts. Perhaps this will serve as a warning to anyone else who wants to try to taunt fighters after a loss. As for this particular fan? Well, James Lynch probably put it best.
“That was a total d— move.”
Did the man who called Curtis Blaydes get what he deserved? Let us know!