Hoooooooly shit. What an event the UFC put on for us last week. I won’t lie, I had such a hard time picking my fights for that card, I was worried that it wouldn’t be able to deliver. How ever was I so wrong (along with some of my picks), this card fucking rocked. Only 4 fights the whole night went to decision and even those were battles and extremely entertaining to watch. After all the carnage it was hard for me to decide who to write about this week. With much deliberation I have decided on the most dangerous BJJ fighter since Royce Gracie in, Demian Maia.
Demian Maia may be the best dual weight fighter to have never won a belt in UFC history, if not one of the best fighters in general to have never won a belt. Maia was on a bad skid before he took out striker Lyman Good in February of this year. I won’t lie, I thought he was done, he was on the wrong side of 40, BJJ was falling out of favor in the UFC in favor of wrestling and kickboxing bases. Unfortunately for him, he went up against 3 guys straight that held welterweight gold (albeit Covington had an interim belt). Going into the Good fight in February, I’ll admit I put money against him, thinking he was washed, then he wrapped him up and submitted him in half a round. Fast forward 4 months and he is up against a slightly more well rounded fighter, I picked against him. I am onboard now, I don’t think he’ll ever see a title fight again, but Donald Cerrone’s win record of 23 is well in sight, with his 21 wins now.
So here I list 3 potential bouts for him (it was real tough to narrow it down) that I think will be incredible for both his career and the fans:
1. Stephen Thompson – I love Wonderboy. I said it. I had the same nickname in middle school, he fights like a kung fu master, from South Carolina, and married to a woman from Long Island. There is nothing I don’t like about this guy other than how he has performed in his big fights as of late. Nothing would be better for both his career and Maia’s career than this matchup. The beginning of the UFC saw fights like this, two masters of a specific discipline duking it out in order to see which is the superior martial art. Here we are, a master karate fighter going up against a guy who is so good at BJJ it is like trying to fight against drowning. This can thrust either fighter back into contender picture with maybe only 1 or 2 wins after catapulting them into a title shot.
2. Darren Till – This is an interesting lad right here. Coming off of an arrest for stealing a taxi while on stag (British bachelor party), he is insistent that he will be back before the end of the year. I’d love to see this matchup, Till is a monster in this weight class but has had issues with elite grapplers. This would be a chance for him to prove his ground game has improved enough to bring him back to the top where he got so early. For Maia this would add another young star to his list of submitted foes. At this point in his career, it’d be more beneficial for him to be the gatekeeper than tarnish his career getting obliterated by more elite wrestlers.
3. Santiago Ponzinibbio – This would just be for fun, I don’t think it would help either get into the title picture. Ponzinibbio has been on a 7 fight winning streak since losing to Lorenz Larkin 4 years ago. Ponzinibbio trained as a kickboxer when he was young in Argentina until he decided to take MMA seriously and moved to Brazil to learn jiu jitsu and start to compete. He eventually joined TUF Brazil and tore through the competition until a broken hand knocked him out of competition. Ponzinibbio should be able to hold his own in grappling against Maia, but has a far better standup game. It would be awesome to watch Maia fight against a guy that forces him to stand because of a strong BJJ background without a wrestling background to just smother him and bore us to death.
Honorable Mentions: Winner of Mike Perry vs Vincente Luque, Loser of Ben Askren vs Jorge Masvidal (Maia vs Masvidal 2 would be awesome), Winner of Michael Chiesa vs Diego Sanchez
I will be honest, I don’t want Maia to take Cowboy’s win record in the slightest. But this guy is future hall of famer and we all need to put respect on his name. He is one of 2 fighters to lose their first title shots in 2 different weight classes (Chael Sonnen), with Silva being the Middleweight winner in both. This guy has an incomparable resume of fights and I am incredibly excited to see it grow. There is a strong chance this guy is 42 years old by his next fight, you hardly see guys stay at the top of their respective divisions for so long, let alone doing it in 2. I’ll leave it to Dana and Sean Shelby at this point, but knowing them, they’ll fuck this up.