“Again excuses – I hate it when someone says that,” Blachowicz told MMA Fighting. “It pisses me off when people start making excuses. I never say that I had a bad camp, injuries, and so on. If you feel bad, stay at home, drink tea with honey and relax. If you went out to fight, don’t look for excuses. It only shows your weakness and that’s it.”
“Everyone said that I would lose the fight. The bookmakers and everyone around thought that he would knock me out in the first round, but I almost won. Now he’s looking for excuses, coming up with why he wasn’t very good in a fight. Do you know why? Yes, because I was very good in this fight. Because I didn’t let him do what he always does. That’s the reason. Now he says, ‘I was injured, I had a bad camp’, but that’s all nonsense – I don’t believe it. This is a weakness. That’s all”
According to Blachowicz, he remains convinced that a draw is the most fair result of the match, in which the light heavyweights could not play for the vacant UFC championship belt.
“A draw is fair, because I was even closer to victory than Ankalaev. One more punch and it could have ended in a TKO, or if I had defended from the takedowns in the fifth round, the fight would have been mine. I could be upset with the referee’s decision, but I reviewed the fight a couple of times and I think that the draw is completely fair.
Recall that the fight between Magomed Ankalaev and Jan Blakhovitch, who headed the UFC 282 tournament in Las Vegas on December 10, went the whole distance and ended in a draw by a separate judicial decision.