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“I think it’s a shame that Chael wasn’t able to take the fight because I know with all that crap he was talking about Anderson this and Anderson that it would be interesting for him to put all those things he had to say into the octagon,” Soares said. “But then again, you’ve got Demian Maia here who is a guy who submitted Chael stepping up here and taking the fight on less-than-two-months’ notice.

“We appreciate Demian stepping up and taking the fight on such short notice, and now you’ve got two of the best at what they do stepping into the octagon.”

Props: MMAJunkie.com

in Report MMA

The fans saw a different Demian Maia in action at UFC 109. Replacing standing against Miller and Dan working on the ground and pound the ground, the black belt he won his first points for the UFC. In an exclusive interview with TATAME, Demian spoke of his sixth victory in the Octagon, who should be his next opponent and Chael Sonnen victory over Nate Marquardt, can register a dispute over belt.

His strategy was to just stay in striking?

My strategy was to put down only the good and rest assured the striking, drop me a little more, see how I felt. Wanted to play with enough patience, not to risk a lot to me that the same test, but the idea was to play in Jiu-Jitsu.

Do you think he avoided the floor with you?

He avoided a lot, wanted to stand with me, but it is normal. Most opponents I fight will want to stand against me. When I got to go to the ground was near the grid, then worked the ground and pound. I did not play much to pass, waited for him to give me the opening, but he did not, so I was hitting my spots and assuring. In the second round, especially, I found a good distance and decided to test me, see how I felt. I felt good, played with confidence.

What did you think of that first win on points in the UFC?

He did not open lot of space, but I did not sought much space. This was a key fight in my career because I could see that I am prepared. I never tried standing in a fight and I did.
You know who will be your next opponent?

I do not know, but I want to get in line dispute belt again. Now only depends on them (UFC).

You came off a loss to Nate Marquardt and had already finalized the Chael Sonnen. Were you surprised by the victory of Sonnen about Nate?

I was not surprised one bit, talked to everyone who Chael had great chances to win. To win it has to have a very good guard, an excellent and striking a reasonable ground for it will put you down. He bears ass and not easy to be finalized, it is one of the hardest games to be beaten in the UFC.

If I could choose, what would you prefer: a rematch with the Marquardt or a fight against Sonnen to define who dispute the belt?

UFC always boot winner against winner, then, if it were to dispute the belt, I would be more fair against Chael, but we’ll see. I’m not worried about it. I just want to be a better athlete and get there on time.

Do you consider just the Sonnen fight for the belt?

In a way it is, because he won three quarries (Dan Miller, Yushin Okami and Nate Marquardt), only had uphill struggle, and he lost me. I think just the way I thought (I dispute the belt) when I won it, but I think they’ll give it to himself. I do not know what criteria, but I just, yes.

You think it no chance to beat Anderson Silva or Vitor Belfort?

I prefer the Brazilian, I will cheer for them, but it can. I greatly admire Anderson and Victor, but he’s game to win any of the weight.

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Last Saturday night at UFC 109, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu specialist Demian Maia decided to implement a striking game for his bout with Dan Miller and ultimately succeeded as he gained a unanimous decision for the win and veer away from his disappointing KO loss to Nate Marquardt at UFC 102 last August. Now, Maia feels he must continue to improve to become an all around top fighter and once a title shot is presented to him is when he believes the time is right for just that.

In a interview with Tatame.com with translation from URDirt.com, Maia says that his plan was to take Dan Miller to the ground to do what he does best, but in the end felt very comfortable with his new found ability to strike on the feet.

“He avoided a lot, wanted to stand with me, but it is normal. Most opponents I fight will want to stand against me. When I got to go to the ground was near the fence, then worked the ground and pound. I did not play much to pass, waited for him to give me the opening, but he did not, so I was hitting my spots and assuring. In the second round, especially, I found a good distance and decided to test me, see how I felt. I felt good, played with confidence.”

With the win at UFC 109, Maia is back in the hunt for the middleweight championship and when asked about Chael Sonnen’s performance in a win over Nate Marquardt, the Brazilian was not surprised that Sonnen would come out on top and had one of the toughest strategies to fight against within the organization.

“It didn’t surprise me not one bit, I was telling everyone that Chael had a good chances to win. To beat him you have to have a good guard, excellent striking and a reasonable ground game, because he will take you down. He can take a beating and he isn’t easily submitted, it’s one of the toughest to beat strategies in the UFC.”

Maia even feels that the UFC’s decision to make him number one contender is “fair”, but says that fellow Brazilians Anderson Silva and Vitor Belfort would come out on top if the UFC 112 faces Sonnen, but admits that the Team Quest fighter still has a chance.

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In the 1st round, the Brazilian get better, trying to put your opponent to the ground. The fight continues with hard striking, with the advantage of Demian.

In the 2nd round, the fight goes on foot, with a very striking balances, and Demian shows the incredible developments in boxing.

In the 3rd round, Demian can put your opponent to the ground, hitting good shots, but could not pass the guard. Demian punishes with several blows and attack ends. In the final victory Demian Maia by unanimous decision.

by No Mundo das Lutas em tempo real

Results  UFC 109

More news UFC 109

by Leland Roling in Blood Yelbow.com

In the second middleweight match-up taking place on the UFC 109 main card, Brazilian jiu-jitsu ace Demian Maia (11-1, 5-1 UFC) makes his return to the Octagon following his twenty-one second knockout loss to Nate Marquardt against the always tough and durable Dan Miller (11-2, 3-1 UFC). Miller enters this contest following a brutal beatdown at the hands of Chael Sonnen at UFC 98 via unanimous decision. Both men will be looking to rebound in a big way in order to keep their names in the mix at the top of the 185 pound weight division.

For most fans looking at this match-up, the winner is clear. Demian Maia’s Brazilian jiu-jitsu wizardry that he’s displayed against opponents such as Chael Sonnen, Nate Quarry, Jason MacDonald, Ed Herman, and Ryan Jensen normally gives fans a one-sided feeling about any opponent with the exception of the top fighters in the division. Sonnen might have slipped his name into that tier of fighters if he had not had a history of deficient submission defense, but Miller’s submission defense is definitely a notch higher.

Submission defense is a huge question in this fight, but the other question that many fans will ask themselves is whether Miller can defeat an opponent who easily submitted Sonnen, Miller’s most recent opponent who crushed him for fifteen straight minutes on his way to an unanimous decision win. While some fans would throw down the MMAth formulas, it’s somewhat a different style match-up.

Miller won’t be having to contend with a better wrestler credential-wise, but Maia’s fluid transitions to submissions and underrated wrestling ability won’t be an easy undertaking for Miller. Miller has stated in a recent interview that he intends to keep Maia away from him by using his wrestling to stuff any takedowns and make the bout  a stand-up battle. Obviously, this is a gameplan that allows Miller to try to make Maia fight his own fight, but Maia has proven in the past that pulling guard can completely change how wrestling is used by his opponents.

Maia’s stand-up will be the most interesting part of his game to watch on Saturday. We don’t know how much face time his newer skills will get during the fight, but from all indications — Maia will be looking for the submission as quickly as he can.

The only truly interesting note is that Miller recently gained his Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt from Renzo Gracie black belt Jamie Cruz over the layoff. Will it be enough to outwit Maia? It’s doubtful as Maia is considered to be light years ahead of the competition when it comes to BJJ for MMA.

Miller’s only chance is to somehow keep Maia away while peppering him with shots. If he can hurt Maia early, we may see a drawn out striking war in which we’ll get a glimpse at Maia’s hard work from the gym. In my mind however, I think we’ll see a standard Maia outing in which he brilliantly baits his opponent into some bad situations and wins via submission.

Entrevista para Univision.com

(Maia finishes Jason MacDonald. Courtesy of Zuffa, LLC)

Ben Fowlkes’ profile of Demian Maia originally appeared in the Feb. 2009 issue of FIGHT! Magazine. Maia will face Dan Miller at UFC 109 on Feb. 6.

It’s the day before UFC 91 in Las Vegas, and you can’t set foot in the MGM Grand without feeling the energy of an approaching fight night. It reaches out and touches you, like static electricity. A little zap on the surface of your skin. Even the regular tourists who are here by accident feel it. They don’t know who these cauliflower-eared men in the lobby are, all decked out in T-shirts covered with sponsor logos, fist up and posing for pictures with giddy young twenty-somethings. They know only that these men have got to be famous, and as tourists they must obey the laws of fame. They must stand and gawk, even if they aren’t sure who they’re gawking at.

This is where Demian Maia comes in. Or rather, this is where he goes by, almost completely unnoticed. The crowd that has gathered around Junie Browning – a familiar face from reality television, they’d recognize that grenade tattoo anywhere – doesn’t see the Brazilian as he strolls by. The undefeated Jiu-Jitsu phenom who just might be the heir to the UFC’s middleweight throne is not even a blip on their radar. Not yet, anyway. By the end of Saturday night, it could well be a different story.

In many ways, the 31-year-old Maia — the decorated grappler who hardly needs to throw a punch to win a fight — seems like a fighter from a different era. The guy has so many Jiu-Jitsu titles – Abu Dhabi champion, World Cup champion, Pan American champion, etc – that listing them all seems tedious since it only confirms what anyone who has seen one of his few fights in the UFC already knows: the guy is a black hole on the ground who swallows up anyone unlucky enough to get close.

His opponents all know what he wants to do, where he wants the fight to go. In theory at least, game-planning for him should be simple. It begins and ends with one rule, and that rule is to stay on your feet at all costs. Turn the fight into a kickboxing match. So far, no one has been able to do it. Nate Quarry is the next man to try. According to conventional wisdom, he has a decent shot. He has never been submitted in his pro career. This fact seems mildly impressive, though not quite daunting, to Maia,

“I’ve seen a few of his fights on tape. He’s good,” Maia admitted a week before the fight, his voice almost opiate-calm after a hard training session with Wanderlei Silva. “He never quits. He has good stand-up and a strong takedown defense.”

Strong enough to stay on his feet? To force Maia into the kind of stand-up striking battle he’s managed to avoid for the bulk of his 3-year MMA career?

“We’ll see,” he says and chuckles. “Other people have tried that already.”

The fact that no one has succeeded isn’t something he feels the need to point out, just like he doesn’t need to tell you what his strategy is for this next fight. It’s obvious to anyone who’s glanced at his resume. But knowing what’s coming and being able to prevent it are two different things.

Maia’s love affair with fighting began early. The son of a musician who played in popular São Paulo nightclubs, his first inclinations were toward combat. He was 4 years old when he first began studying Judo. After that came Kung Fu and Karate, both of which aided him well growing up in Brazil, where fighting was practically a part of the school curriculum.

“When I was a kid, maybe 12 years old, I discovered that I really liked to fight,” he says. “I wasn’t a mean kid, but when a fight started I liked it. I wanted to hurt the other guy. Martial arts helped me learn some self-control. It helped with my anger and made me focused.”

Unlike many Brazilian youths, Maia was late in discovering Jiu-Jitsu. But at age 19, while working toward a journalism degree in college, he discovered his passion for the sport in a local academy. Almost immediately he was training at every available moment, sometimes three times per day. It was this drive and dedication, he says, that accelerated his development.

“I don’t think I had more talent than the other guys. Maybe slightly more than average. But I think it was my mind that helped me become better. I saw that I was willing to do more than some other guys were. That’s what made the difference.”

Maia’s obsessive training led to a black belt in less than five years, an uncommonly rapid advance through the ranks. Though he’d go on to dazzle the Jiu-Jitsu world with victories in the absolute division of the World Cup in 2002 and 2003, and later an Abu Dhabi championship in 2007, it didn’t prepare him for the unique challenge of becoming a professional MMA fighter.

“The hardest thing is that you must always be prepared for the next fight. Always,” he says. “You can’t ever afford not to be. In Jiu-Jitsu, if you lose a tournament you move on to the next one. It’s no big deal. In MMA, every fight is your most important fight. I think a lot of guys go to MMA from Jiu-Jitsu just for the money. I think this is why many of them are not successful. But this is too hard a life to do only for money. You have to love it.”

And Maia does. Even though it takes him away from his family, from his wife, to far-off places like Finland, Canada, and the United States. The travel is part of the allure. It’s the adventurous life he’s always wanted — going to new places, meeting new people, and getting paid to kick the asses of said people. It has worked out well so far.

(Maia cinches up Ryan Jensen. Courtesy of Zuffa, LLC)

One thing Jiu-Jitsu competition has taught him is how to deal with pressure. The nerves before a fight are almost commonplace now, so when they accompany his last-minute locker room preparations for the bout against Quarry, they feel nothing if not normal. The crowd response is somewhat tepid during his walk to the Octagon. Quarry follows a few moments later to a louder ovation, looking every bit the chiseled athlete Maia’s been preparing for. What he doesn’t know is that the walkouts and introductions will take longer than the fight itself.

Maia wastes no time putting his game plan into action, shooting for a double-leg takedown and then pulling a half-guard, which he uses to trip Quarry once the American tries to pull away. Just that quickly they are already in his world. Quarry’s attempt at staying on his feet has lasted just 30 seconds. A few more ticks of the clock and Maia is in full mount. Then he takes Quarry’s back. The rear naked choke follows like some unavoidable natural progression, the way one moment leads to the next.

It almost seems like a letdown. So much training, travel, and preparation, all for less than 3 minutes of action.

After the fight he mentions Michael Bisping as a potential future opponent, an idea the UFC brass seem amenable to. In the postfight press conference Dana White admits to being very impressed with Maia’s win, saying he and matchmaker Joe Silva talked about how the Brazilian might factor into the “moves” they have planned for the middleweight division.

Does that mean Maia could end up as a coach (and a reality television star in his own right) opposite Bisping on the next Ultimate Fighter, a reporter asks.

“Could be,” White says.

The night is not without one minor letdown, however. For the first time in four UFC fights, Maia does not take home the Submission of the Night award. He shrugs it off. He got a little something extra for his trouble anyway, he hints later. Apparently, there are certain benefits to running through a UFC veteran as if your car was double parked outside the arena.

But beyond the extra cash for his wallet, Maia has earned himself a brief rest and a trip home. As much as he likes to travel, it’s always sweet to return to his wife a winner.

“I love this. Truly, I do,” he says. “It’s hard, the training is intense, and sometimes it’s very difficult, mentally and physically. But it’s a dream job for me.”

At the rate he’s going, it’s hard to imagine the dream coming to an end anytime soon.

You bout against Dan Miller was, at first, part of the undercard and later promoted to the main card due to the canceling of another fight. For someone who was one step away from fighting for the belt is it painful to almost see yourself excluded from the main card?

It always is, you know. It’s always kind of a pain. You see that your value, in reality, is directly connected to your last fight. Your past doesn’t matter, things you’ve done, five fights and five submission wins. It doesn’t make a difference. What matters is always the last fight you had. But I’m a fighter and I know that that’s how it works, there’s no point in lying to myself. At first it’s a pain, but it just fuels your desire to perform even better.
Does your only conqueror Nate Marquardt deserve to fight for the belt?
I think he does. He demonstrated it in his last fight. He’s already had a chance, but in the same way that I want to have another chance to continue fighting and get to the top again, he also has the right to make his way back there and fight for the belt. He earned it.
How far was your career set back on account of the loss to Nate?
I have no way to measure that. Everything is still depending on my next fights and results.
Do you consider Dan Miller one of the top guys in the category?
He isn’t very well known in Brazil, but elsewhere he is. Just like Nate, you know? I talked about Nate here in Brazil and lots of people didn’t know who he was. [Dan] was a champion in the IFL and is an excellent fighter. He’s a good test for me right now.
What did you think about them scheduling a fight against Miller?
He is a tough guy, who was a champion. He’s good on the ground. I think they want to test me since he’s complete, like Nate. Perhaps he isn’t at the same level as Nate, but he’s someone who stands and strikes and has a good ground game. So, I think they want to test me and see who’ll leave the winner to start working on their career again.
Have you watched Miller’s fights from the IFL or did you just get to watching them now?
To tell the truth, I don’t watch MMA fights often, I just watch my friends’. I watch Rogério Minotouro, Rodrigo Minotauro, Júnior Cigano, Wanderlei Silva. Other fights are difficult for me to stop and watch. I watch my opponents’ fights so as to outline a strategy, but I don’t have much patience to watch other athletes’ fights. I’ve been like that for a long time, watching fights for a long time, so I end up really watching the closest people to me, in addition to my opponents.
What should Miller’s strategy be against you?
He’ll try to strike a little, but he is basically a ground fighter. So, the natural thing for him is to want to exchange and then try his jiu-jitsu. There’s no way around it, it’s his instinct. But I think he’ll try to beat me standing.
Do you now prefer to watch MMA fights or jiu-jitsu?
It depends. I like to watch any good fight, jiu-jitsu or MMA. What I don’t care for is going out on a Saturday night to watch fights at 1 in the morning. I’d rather go out and then later watch only the fights that I want to see.
How much do you want to fight Nate again?
I think one day I’ll fight with him again, but it’ll be at the right moment. I don’t think that fight would be interesting for the UFC right now, nor for me or Nate. Farther down the road, one day we’ll face each other again.
Did the loss to Nate show that you need to put more emphasis on your stand up game?
I didn’t start to train stand-up because of him. I always trained, ever since I got into UFC I knew that I had to be professional and improve myself standing up, it’s just that it takes time to evolve in that aspect. I’m still evolving and training stand-up, but I believe that in the fight against Nate my biggest mistake involved strategy and concentration. My concentration slipped and I messed up strategically. Experience was lacking and for that I tried kicking him aimlessly, without being very focused in the beginning of the fight.
You recently said that you were reaching your prime as a fighter. What’s giving you this certainty and how do you behave in the event that you lose to Dan Miller, believing yourself to be in your best form? Would this make a loss even more frustrating?
No. I don’t think about that. I don’t think about the defeat nor the victory. To tell the truth I only think about going there and fighting. Two people get in there and one will have to lose and the other win. So there’s none of that. I’m a fighter and I’m prepared for a victory or for a defeat. Winning or losing will not leave me depressive. I’ll do everything to win. I feel that with every fight I evolve and improve technically. In these two years in the UFC I’ve only evolved. It’s always a climb. I feel better with every fight.
Vitor Belfort vs Anderson Silva, what’s your bet?
No expert that I talk with will risk calling a winner. Lots of people that have trained with both of them don’t know who will win. Vitor has every chance of winning. In that fight he’ll be a 100 meter sprinter and Anderson has to be a marathon runner. For Vitor it’s best to come out quickly, but taking care not to get caught by Anderson’s counters. But it’s a dangerous fight. If it goes the distance it’s better for Anderson.

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by ADAM KUZNARSKY in BAD BOY

On February 6, Bad Boy has two fighters competing on the UFC 109 main card. Bad Boy fighter, Demian Maia, will face off against Dan Miller in a battle of middleweights, while another Bad Boy fighter, Paulo Thiago, will fight against fellow welterweight Mike ‘Quick’ Swick. The Bad Boy Affiliate Team has released two new precoded contents for the fights. Just grab the code from below the precoded content.Remember to change the USERID to your own personal ShareASale user id!

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