Curtis Blaydes details nasty illness that forced him out of UFC 313: ‘I texted them while I was on the toilet’

Curtis Blaydes had every reason to pull out of UFC 313 last month.

The long-time heavyweight contender was set to meet the debuting Rivzan Kuniev on the card. It was definitely a surprising matchup, but fans were disappointed all the same when it fell through at the last minute.

Having said that, it’s impossible to fault Blaydes for withdrawing from his UFC 313 fight. The heavyweight was forced out of action by a bad bout of Norovirus, and from the sounds of it, it wasn’t pretty.

“Yeah, it’s rough,” Blaydes told Home of Fight, recounting the illness (h/t MMA Mania). “I can’t speak for everyone, but in my own experience, it’s about 12 hours of pissing out of your butt. It’s rough. And it’s very dehydrating. It’s not just the diarrhea. It’s also nausea. You’re throwing up. You can’t hold down even a drop of water. It wasn’t a good a good experience.

“That’s why I had to call off the fight,” Blaydes continued. “I’m not going to risk my ranking and my legacy and everything I’ve built up because I got a virus the morning of the park. So, it was easy decision.”

Curtis Blaydes “knew immediately” he wouldn’t be able to fight

Blaydes went on to explain that there was little hesitation to withdraw from UFC 313.

“I knew immediately within the first hour, it was bad — I knew then,” Blaydes said. “I know my post was like, ‘We’ll just see how it is in a few hours.’ It hit me up immediately, at 2 in the morning. It woke me up out of my sleep, and I texted them while I was on the toilet like, ‘Yo, I am messed up. This is not good.’”

Blaydes is not the first UFC fighter to be taken down by illness of late. Just late week, Joe Pyfer pulled out of a Mexico City scrap with Kelvin Gastelum for similar reasons — though he blamed it on the country he was visiting. Loopy Godinez also fell ill on the same card, but unlike Blaydes and Pyfer, decided to power through. It worked out for her in the end, but she narrowly avoided disaster in the Octagon.