Maia Who? Maia Why? Maia ha ha.

[NHB7]

I really like Maia. As a man pushing 40 here, it’s always inspirational to see older fighters like Maia still fighting at a high level. That said, his apparent fight strategies are starting to confuse me.

Well, they aren’t that confusing in that he has become so painfully predictable. His fights go exactly the way you know they will. But like last night there were several things he didn’t try and given that nothing else was working....WHY NOT?!

He threw almost no kicks. Why not? You’re clearly not scared of being taken down. In fact by mid-fight you’re praying the guy takes you down, so spam him with kicks! In fact throw some temptingly slow ones to the body that a wrestler can hardly avoid the reflex of scoring a quick takedown. Yes, you need to fear counter strikes, but Usman isn’t a KO guy, and there is the ol’ tried and true “keep your hands up.”

Also, every time he got forced to the edge of the cage, he literally ran so he could get back to the center. WHY?!! Yes, the center is a great place to do striking (Clearly not an important part of Maia’s game plan). It’s a great place to start a chain takedown attempt (by round 3 you gotta realize that’s not working for you). And yes, if you are a bjj Guy, when it gets to the ground, you want to be away from the fence, but it has to GET TO THE GROUND! And since you clearly can’t do it by reaching for double legs in the center of the ring, then stop running there!! But maybe you can lull your opponent into some clinching against the cage!

Maia’s team needs to either refuse any more offers of wrestlers or have him try ANYTHING NEW!!

 

[ralphus1]

 

[WildWestWhoopAss]

Agreed, frustrating to watch

 

[TheRassler]

Maia hee, Maia ha, Maia who? Maia ha ha


lol

 

[Summoning]

Why is Maia?

 

[Th3Sav4ge]

last time maia threw a kick and commited marquart knocked him dead. proving to demian to stay in your wheel house. if hes out there throwing all these suposed things, he will have more losses. do people forget the fights he had at middleweight were he tried to stand up a bit?.

he drops to ww, starts wrangling boys and gets a title shot. then he drops a few to some new killers, and hes suddenly doing everything wrong. yes maia is a one trick pony as far as he needs to offensively grapple. everyone knows that. but hes wasnt in the top 5-10 in 2 weight classes for no reason.


his biggest downfall to me is his cardio. he seems tense all the time.

 

[pigsnake]

What I find really frustrating as a huge Maia fan is his seeming lack of back-up gameplans. He could try kicks as suggested, throwing strikes after faking takedowns (a time-old strategy which has proven to work wonders for grapplers who are unable to take down much better strikers), add some standing submission entries - go for leglocks or guillotines from the clinch etc. It's really surprising that his team hasn't thought of any of this.

Also, what's even more puzzling and worrying is he seems to have given up staple elements of his game which worked well in the past for him. I'm referring to pulling half-guard - he didn't try it a single time in the Woodley fight and only tried it in the last two fights after he was really gassed. I really can't understand why he stopped doing it after the Masvidal fight - was he afraid of Woodley's GNP - not very likely... He's also given up clinch takedowns except for the occasional osoto-gari - the last time he tried those techniques was at MW I think.

 

[loisestrad]

That's a great song! Where you looking for that pun?

 

[Reach4theSky]

 

[Gilday]

10/10 title

 

[Zanmato]

If he can't get the fight to the ground he is, broadly speaking, useless. You just can't get away with that at the top level anymore.

 

[One MMA Fan]

 

[xP]

The reason he didn't want to be on the cage and the reason he didn't throw kicks are probably the same, stamina. Not that it's really a good reason as they could help him if played right but that's probably why.

 

[emax]

I think he's now going to be stuck with at best being a mid level gate keeper for the last phase of his pro fight career. He's not really all that one dimensional since he is efficient with upper and lower body takedowns and has a phenomenal submission, wrestling and Judo/Jiu Jitsu game but MMA is at a point where you can't be that dependent on getting the takedown to win fights or dependent on one style of striking in the standup. Maia managed to have a great resurgence by being able to cut to his ideal weight and complementing his original Brazilian wizardy game with some of the most effective MMA wrestling/clinching to be displayed in the Octagon. But for various reasons he was never able to develop an effective plan B for when none of his wrestling or Jiu Jitsu TDs got the fight where he wanted. He was probably as successful as you can conceivably get nowadays without having a truly strong foundation in every important area. That said, now he has to move on from his days as an elite fighter.

 

[That209]

Why is Maia?

Ok Drax we get it.

 

[NHB7]

last time maia threw a kick and commited marquart knocked him dead. proving to demian to stay in your wheel house. if hes out there throwing all these suposed things, he will have more losses. do people forget the fights he had at middleweight were he tried to stand up a bit?.

he drops to ww, starts wrangling boys and gets a title shot. then he drops a few to some new killers, and hes suddenly doing everything wrong. yes maia is a one trick pony as far as he needs to offensively grapple. everyone knows that. but hes wasnt in the top 5-10 in 2 weight classes for no reason.


his biggest downfall to me is his cardio. he seems tense all the time.

Getting knocked out after throwing a kick is not a reason to eliminate kicks from your aresenal. It’s a reason to train proper defense while throwing kicks.

 

[HelloJapan]

You’re clearly not scared of being taken down. In fact by mid-fight you’re praying the guy takes you down, so spam him with kicks!

I've been saying this in countless threads for awhile. I wish after Nate KO'd him, and he went to focus on his striking, he went to a camp like Kings MMA. Look what they did with RDA and Werdum. It's so frustrating.

 

[Th3Sav4ge]

Getting knocked out after throwing a kick is not a reason to eliminate kicks from your aresenal. It’s a reason to train proper defense while throwing kicks.

if you're a grappler and a fantastic one, and you throw a kick and get knocked the fuck out, you arnt really gonna be committing to kicks. imagine if wonderboy shoots a takedown early in his career and gets subbed immediately. yeah hes gonna work on that in the gym but thats not gonna be in the gameplan

i agree a few leg kicks wouldnt hurt maias game. but i know why hes not doin it. its also not like maias speed has ever been talked about.

 

[ClosetVitorFan]

I just feel at this point it's too late to refine his striking. He needs at least serviceble striking to set up take downs. His take downs suck. He needs to learn double leg, single leg, clinch take downs. IF he gets you down, you're in a world of trouble. But that's IF. Everybody knows this. Guys like Werdum and Jacare can actually take people down and have decent striking for BJJ guys. Maia has always been bad at striking. He never improved. The time to improve was 10+ years ago.

 

[HelloJapan]

last time maia threw a kick and commited marquart knocked him dead. proving to demian to stay in your wheel house. if hes out there throwing all these suposed things, he will have more losses. do people forget the fights he had at middleweight were he tried to stand up a bit?.

he drops to ww, starts wrangling boys and gets a title shot. then he drops a few to some new killers, and hes suddenly doing everything wrong. yes maia is a one trick pony as far as he needs to offensively grapple. everyone knows that. but hes wasnt in the top 5-10 in 2 weight classes for no reason.


his biggest downfall to me is his cardio. he seems tense all the time.

That was no "kick" lol...and he deserved to be KO'd for such an attempt...and I'm a big Maia fan. That KO is the precise reason you go train kicks...its like a fireman afraid of heat.

His cardio when grappling is actually solid, his cardio gets weak as he strikes, why? Because he has horrid striking technique...he's a heavy arm puncher, he loads everything up, its draining.

Maia's made some improvements over the years, and failed in other areas. To me, Maia is "what could have been". Young BJJ types should learn from mistakes, and steal his productive work.