Curtis Blaydes thought he beat Hokit: 'I was a little bit in shock'

Curtis Blaydes disputes the judges' scorecards in his UFC 327 loss.

Blaydes (19-6 MMA, 14-6 UFC) was outlasted in a Fight of the Night war against Josh Hokit (9-0 MMA, 3-0 UFC) on this past Saturday's main card at Kaseya Center in Miami. All three judges awarded him Round 1, and gave Hokit the final two rounds.

While the damage was visible on Blaydes' face, the perennial heavyweight contender thought he mixed things up better.

"I was surprised," Blaydes told TMZ Sports. "I was expecting Herb (Dean) to pick my hand up. I really, really was. I was a little bit in shock. I was like, 'Damn – I thought I did enough.' I watched a lot of the clips, a lot of the excerpts, a round here, an exchange here and it looked like – yeah, it was a hell of a fight.

"I won a lot of those exchanges, and he won a lot of those exchanges. It seemed split, but then you add in the wrestling. He didn't get any of his wrestling going. I got mine going. That was really the main reason I thought I won because I knew on the strikes it was even, but then when you add the grappling, I know I won that."

Blaydes was transported to the hospital immediately after the fight where he suffered a fractured orbital and fractured nose.

"I feel good," Blaydes said. "Early on, I was on pain meds. I was on Percocet because I have the orbital and broken nose, but I haven't had any of those in a day, so I still feel good. And if you watched the fight, I know everybody did, he didn't hit me anywhere else besides the face.

"So, my legs are good, my arms are good, everything else is good. I'd like to think he broke the nose on that early overhand in the first round. That's where all the blood was from. I think that was like the biggest deciding factor for the judges was all the blood I was spilling, and that's just because I'm a bleeder."

This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Curtis Blaydes thought wrestling won him Josh Hokit fight at UFC 327