Ahead of the biggest fight of his UFC career, Curtis Blaydes opened up about his speech impediment and the impact it’s had on him.
Razor’ is set to challenge interim heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall in the UFC 304 co-main event in what will be his first shot at UFC gold since making his promotional debut eight years ago. Ahead of their highly anticipated title tilt at Co-op Live in Manchester, Blaydes looked back on his younger years growing up on the mean streets of Chicago where kids would often make fun of his speech disorder.
“I never really saw myself as like a spokesman for speech impediments, but it was my dad… He also had a speech impediment,” Blaydes said during his UFC 304 media day appearance. “I got it from him. It’s hereditary. It’s not because of CTE. Let’s get that out there. I know I get asked that the most.
“I used to… Whenever people asked for my name, I used to go c…c…c… They’d look at me like, ‘Are you special? Do you not know how to pronounce your own name?’ It used to make me feel some type of way. Now I judge them. Are you that ignorant that you think that me as a grown man, I don’t know how to pronounce my own name? I have a speech impediment. I’ve gotten over it, but it took me a while.
“I was a kid in high school that wouldn’t raise my hand if I knew the answer. I was embarrassed. I didn’t want people to laugh and call that stuff. I just want those people who also have a speech impediment to know that if people are laughing at you, it doesn’t mean anything about you. It means a whole lot more about them and their character.“
At one point, Blaydes had considered a career as a history teacher but refrained from pursuing it, suggesting that the cruelty of kids played a role in his decision.
“Kids are mean. I can’t be in a classroom with them for eight hours,” Aspinall said in a prior interview with the New York Post. “There [are] so many people who just think, if you cannot speak…medically correct, that you’re not intelligent. Contrary to popular belief, a lot of us who have speech impediments are really, really intelligent.”
For what it’s worth, ‘Razor’ is doing pretty good with his chosen career.
Curtis Blaydes looks to go two-up on Tom Aspinall
Amassing an impressive 13-4 record inside the Octagon, Curtis Blaydes has bested some of the heavyweight division’s heaviest hitters over the years, including former world champions Andrei Arlovski and Junior dos Santos. He’s won four of his last five, earning wins over the likes of Jairzinho Rozenstruik, Chris Daukaus, Jailton Almeida, and his UFC 304 opponent, Tom Aspinall.
Squaring off at a Fight Night event in London two years ago, Aspinall went down 15 seconds into their scrap due to a devastating knee injury. Aspinall has been chomping at the bit to run it back ever since.
He’ll finally get his wish on Saturday night when he becomes the first fighter in more than a decade to defend an interim title.