The response to this fight was disgusting. Despite the fact that 99.9% of people here had not seen it, the almost unanimous consensus was that a)Herman got absolutely owned b) Herman sucks, and c)Maia is the savior of the 185 lbs division. A is simply not true, and b & c cannot both be correct. If Herman sucks, then so does Maia, because he gave Maia a VERY tough fight.
Herman did not win the first round, but it would not have been unbelievable if he had. He did a great job avoiding/getting takedowns, and landed several hard shots on Maia. He was doing the same in the second round as well, until he "got caught". Honestly Maia was gassing and up until the triangle Herman had an increasingly good chance of winning the fight.
Equally disgusting was the commentating! I knew Kenflo would not miss a beat in replacing Rogan's bjj dick sucking, but Goldie was keeping pace with him the best he could. Neither of them said practically anything positive about Herman. Obviously the UFC is trying to promote Maia because he is a potential threat to Silva, but the complete lack of credit given to Herman, especially when Maia is "so good" was ridiculous. Rogan and Kenflo would have been better because it would have been so over the top biased it would have been hilarious.
herman is a solid fighter...he actually poses a real threat stylistically for maia in that GnP has traditionally been the anti-BJJ tactic...maia would maul BJJ guys at that weight and submit the strikers even easier, honestly, a solid Gnp guy is gonna be his weakness...
I agree. Maia's performance was not that great. He took a lot of punishment from guard and his takedowns won't be good enough for the upper level talent of the 185 lb division. We didn't see much of his striking, but it seemed slowed.
I was especially not impressed with Maia losing mount.
He also look somewhat small for the 185 lb division and his gas ran out kind of early.
This is coming from a huge Maia fan. He could be the future of the UFC, but he still needs a lot of work. He should consider dropping to 170 maybe and he needs to work on his conditioning and standup/takedowns.
Agreed. BJJ guys (like myself)are going to be excited by Maia. But the truth is that the fight was pretty even, if not slightly in Herman's favor, until the triangle.
waveman - Kenny Florian----"you (Maia) showed why you have the best BJJ ever to be in the octagon"
Florian knows about BJJ.
Maia is by far the most accomplished grappler to step into the octagon, but his performance wasn't as dominating as expected. Especially his loss of mount.
Relax my friend the 1st round was Herman defending one sub after another. Ed fought well defending the set ups and sub attempts and he was a tough opponent. Great job to him and his team.
Demian has great takedown ability and Herman did a fantastic job in his take down defense and only got taken down a couple of times. His takedown defense was really good and Demian decided just to pull half guard and guard as that is where we wanted Ed (either in the 1/2 guard or guard trying to punch and elbow.)
We figured this would give us the best opportunity to set up to take the back or to set up and arm or triangle and it did.
Demian is 8-0 with some tough fights against guys like Jensen, Herman, Fabio Nagao, and ximu machado. He will continue to do well in the UFC and we are happy people are impressed with his skill and enjoy his performances.
take care
Yes I am quite upset! Boo hoo hoo, please listen to my cries.
Really, I like Maia, HE was the only one to give Herman any credit that night.
I only saw round 2 but other than some GnP on Herman's behalf that was nice, wasn't all that damaging. He did get a takedown but it's obvious Maia wanted it on the ground. Maia tried a triangle that didn't go very far but by the time the scramble finished, Maia was already trying another triangle that resulted in Herman ending up in a triangle from mount getting punched in that face with the referee sliding in.
edit - I haven't seen the first round but Kenny Florian said he gave Round 1 to Maia for positioning and constant submission attempts.
Ed fought really well and we knew he would be tough. Demian just trained hard and game planed well and as always the rest was up to God.
Ed should get a lot of credit. He kept coming at Demian, didnt give up even after he got taken down and eventually mounted and fought right through to the end. Great job and both he and his camp were great sportsmen.
To be honest my opinion of Ed has greatly changed since the fight.
Both guys seemed slow in R2. Goldberg said it looked Maia gassed. Was he a lot more active in R1?
Round one was Demian attacking with lots of sub attempts...took Herman down....had an arm bar attempt and omo plata to a knee bar transition to a triangle attempt to an armbar. then demian had a tight heel hook from his snake guard position and herman defended it well then demian swept to the top, and mounted.
ed defended the mount well and rolled demian over and finnished the round ground and pounding from the gaurd.
ufc.com has the fight go buy it, its worth the $2
word, thanks. i'm gonna check ufc.com for the full fight.
I agree he didn't look as good as i expected after hearing all the hype on this forum. he still needs alot of work b4 being a top contender imo.
bottom line is that maia was beginnning to gas in r2. I feel that if he didn't get the sub, herman would've won by split decision taking r2 and r3 by 2 judges. He was solid in r1, but started to have the same problem most tournament bjjers have.... they can't maintain the that level the whole fight. (lutter, penn, bocek, garcia etc..)
Tapping Bocek is another league of achievement over tapping Herman.
Based on what i saw in the second round, Maia has some work to do in cardio and tds and gnp defense. A better, stronger, more rounded guy might have done more damage to Maia in that second round or just kept it standing and gone from there.
Im excited that there is a hot new comer in the much needed MW div with such slick BJJ but i was surprised to see Herman taking it to him in the second and how sloppy Maia looked until the triangle. Not very savior looking material just based off that.
Also, seemed weird that Herman tried the same guard pass that lead to the previous triangle attempt in which he got caught in the second pass attempt.
Maia is a great talent. But wait till he faces a guy with great striking and wrestling with alittle BJJ even...a Liddel type...Maia wrestling is d-3 level at best and that could cost him down the road...i still like Almeida to beat him. i even think Belcher would knock him out
HERMAN SUCKS!
PirateJaxOff = BUTTHURT NOOB WHO'S HEART WAS BROKEN WHEN HIS FAVORITE "TUFFER" GOT TOOLED BY REAL TALENT!