The MMA world may have seen Demian Maia make his last walk to the octagon.
At UFC 263 on Saturday, the two-time UFC title challenger lost a unanimous decision to Belal Muhammad in a welterweight bout that served as the last fight on Maiaās current contract. In the lead-up to the fight, much of the talk revolved around whether Maia, 43, would continue to compete past this weekend, win or lose.
UFC President Dana White was asked for his take on the situation at the eveningās post-fight press conference and he answered that he does not expect Maia to fight again, at least not for his promotion.
āI think that was his last fight,ā White said. āIt was the last fight on his deal. Heās [43 years old]. Heās been so good at getting in there, securing the takedown, getting on top of people and just strangling them or grabbing something and twisting it until you quit, and he couldnāt get it done tonight. Heās [43 years old], heās a great guy, heās had a great career, and yes, I would say thatās probably it.ā
Maia said something about wanting to do celebrity boxingā¦
Naaaaat
For people that may not know @Hong_Kong_Phooey 's reference to Masvidal,he has started/a partner in a bare Knuckle org
Yeah,and Paige Van Zant is going to commentate ^^^^
Comes A time - Neil Young and Old
That and every fight where he didnāt see the urgency of scoring the takedown
Sad to see it end that way, but Maia was a fucking stud. That he could be successful in this day and age with simply takedowns and BJJ speaks to how amazing he was
Hes done. You cant be a one tricÄ· pony pure BJJ guy anymore these days in MMA
Yes and no. He fought for a title twice and was top 10 for years. The sport is evolving but you still have your specialists out there
Well yes, he is one of the last ones who. But todays (and even more tomorrows) MMA its hard to just stick with your speciality and not develop the other parts of MMA. Maia could get away with it, but as you see all his last fights against the new generation, its hard.
Maia is probably the nicest and classiest guy to ever compete in MMA. Itād be nice if Dana showed the same class and sorted out with Maia what happens going forward rather than mouthing off to the press about it. Canāt expect much from the guy though eh
Maia was/is a special fighter and one of the more underappreciated fighters at the top of the division. Many people donāt realize how difficult it is to implement his style of fighting (i.e. grappling AND submitting people) and be successful with it. Especially against the level of guys he was fighting.
Hope the UFC doesnāt toss him to the side and, at least, utilizes him for their Brazilian sector of media.
For sure underappreciated by a lot of fans. I was looking at it yesterday and these are the rough numbersā¦
Maia competed at WW from the ages of 34-43. He went 13-7 at WW in that time period. People donāt appreciate how difficult that is to pull off. Here are some other WWs and what they did at WW from the age of 34 onward for comparison.
Maia 13-7
GSP 0-0
Woodly 4-4-1
Hughes 3-4
Hendricks 0-0
Lawler 1-5
Diaz 0-0
Condit 2-3
Also, to the people who think heās a āone trick ponyā, to that I would say look a little deeper at his game.
Maia used to be a guard puller. When that approach stopped working for him, he invested his time, heavily, into wrestling. He trained at a pure wrestling school (Edge Hoboken).
Of course, his striking was not up to par with the rest of the division but he knew where his strengths lied. One more skill not many people realized about him was his skill to recognize distance and foot/leg positioning of his opponents. He knew exactly when to take a shot depending on where his opponentās leg was. I donāt think many other fighters, at the top, were as successful with grabbing a leg as he was.
Against the cage, he was a master at the art of kazushi (off balancing) and weight distribution. Go back and look at how many people he fully tripped or made lose their balance from the fence.