Demian Maia has been in the MMA industry for quite some time now and it looks like he’s constantly make a splash in the UFC since 2007. In fact, he even had five-fight winning streak by submission. However, as Maia went along with his career, he focused more on fighting smart to win each fight rather than actually stopping his contenders.
This was the case until Maia received a call from the UFC president, Dana White.
“I’ve started to fight tough, tough fighters and it’s hard to submit them, of course, but at the same time I was being more conservative and taking more care about losing positions. I was more about winning, but I remember talking to Dana White after a press conference and he said, ‘You’re doing great jiu-jitsu, you have great control, but you can take more risks. You have the jiu-jitsu to take more risks. We’re not asking you to do striking and standup. You can do your jiu-jitsu and a lot of people want to see that, but if you take more risks when you get the mount of the back, (it) would be great.’ After that, I fought in Rio against Neil Magny and I took more risks, and because that was in my mind, it was good. It’s hard because you want to win so bad that you don’t want to make mistakes, but I took risk and I was able to submit him in that fight. I’m taking more risks in my jiu-jitsu game,” Maia said.
If there would be a next chance that Maia would be able to get a good chance of grabbing an MMA submission victory, it would be against Matt Brown. Brown met nine of his thirteen fights via submission and has definitely shown a lot of flaws inside the cage. A good example of this would be his epic loss to Johny Hendricks last year during UFC 185.
Even though Brown’s MMA record would have a lot of defeats via submission, but the last time he lost in that technique was five years ago in UFC 139. Maia admitted that “The Immortal” did great in the cage, but he doesn’t know if that would be enough to stop his jiu-jitsu background.
“Early in his career he had a lot of losses by submission, but after that the last five years he no lose by submission. He learned something, he’s different and has a much better defense. I don’t think he will be a guy who will be easy to submit just because he was submitted five years ago. He’s a different fighter. He learned from that mistake and that’s why I’m not like, ‘He’s lost by submission so I’m going to do the same.’ Of course I want to submit him, but it doesn’t mean it will be easier because his record in recent years shows no submissions,” Maia said.
Maia also said that his record is more impressive compared to others, so he deserves an MMA title shot more than anybody else.
“Everybody knows my goal right now is to fight for the title – I want to have the chance to try to win that title again that I had six years ago (at middleweight). My whole career at welterweight is to go for the title shot and I think now I am getting closer. I just wanted that fight that made sense for that. I know if I win that fight there’s a big chance I fight for the title and that’s what I’m looking for. I think if I win I should get the title shot next. I really believe I can be the champion. I don’t want to wait. I will be in my best shape, I will do my best and I will do the best fight ever against Matt Brown. If he wins, OK. But if I win, I want to fight for that title,” he added.