UFC 190 Results: Five Fights for Demian Maia
Demian Maia put on a Brazilian jiu-jitsu clinic for two rounds before he submitted Neil Magny during their UFC 190 bout. The 37-year old fighter used his skill set to stifle every attempt at offense from his younger competitor.
Maia is slotted in the No. 6 position within the welterweight division, and this dominating win opens up some interesting bouts for him in the future.
Dong Hyun Kim
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Maia and Dong Hyun Kim have a history that needs to be solved.
The men competed against each other in 2012 at UFC 148, but that fight lasted only 47 seconds before Kim suffered a rib injury that forced an end to the bout. Maia was awarded the victory, but nothing was truly rectified between the two world-class grapplers.
Both men have since obtained success in the Octagon, and now is the right time to put them against each other once again.
Maia and Kim are two dominant grapplers. Maia’s BJJ acumen has allowed him to grab 10 submission victories in his career along with multiple championships in grappling competitions outside of MMA. Kim is a Judo black belt who has stifling top control whenever he decides to use it in action. Putting these two in the cage again would be a style matchup that fans of the grappling arts would immediately get behind.
Stephen Thompson
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Stephen Thompson is quickly rising through the welterweight ranks. The No. 9-ranked fighter is coming off of a highlight-reel finish against Jake Ellenberger.
Maia can once again be used as a gatekeeper against Thompson to see just how far the famed striker is ready to go within the welterweight division.
Maia’s game plan is well known: He uses his wrestling to immediately get the fight down to the floor and seek a win via control or submission. Maia’s striking skills are developing, but he seems to have decided to go back to using his grappling as his main strength.
That will be key against Thompson because attempting to strike at him has not worked well for many men in the cage. The storyline would be whether Maia can get this fight to the ground or if Thompson will be able to play the game on his feet.
Gunnar Nelson
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Gunnar Nelson is another competitor who has a strong grappling skill set. The 27-year-old fighter is a black belt under Renzo Gracie and a multiple time medalist in grappling competitions outside of mixed martial arts. This is a fight that would again attract the purists who enjoy the grapplers over the strikers in MMA.
The question here is who would be better on the floor. The style matchup is akin to when Maia fought Jake Shields at UFC Fight Night 29 in 2013. Shields was able to use his size to stifle Maia for enough of their five round affair to get the win. Nelson doesn’t have the same type of size, so it would be compelling to see if he can do the same against the Brazilian fighter.
This would be a big fight in the old-vs.-new guard of grappling in mixed martial arts.
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Kelvin Gastelum
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Kelvin Gastelum is ranked 15th within the welterweight division. If he can convince the matchmakers in the UFC to allow him to move back down to 170 pounds, he should be slotted against Maia to see if he truly belongs in the upper echelon of this group.
Gastelum was doing well within the cage when he had the opportunity to fight as a welterweight. Unfortunately, his issues making weight have forced him out of the weight class. He’s asked for another chance, but, according Damon Martin of Fox Sports, UFC President Dana White is not a big fan of the idea.
Still, this is a fight that would help the careers of both Maia and Gastelum at this point in time.
Matt Brown
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Maia and fifth-ranked Matt Brown are closely linked within the welterweight division rankings. Both men have struggled when placed against the top of the weight class but still have value in beating back the men who try to push their way into the top 10.
Putting them against each other would create an interesting striker-vs.-grappler bout that could be used as a preliminary main card fight leading into a UFC pay-per-view.
Brown once struggled against men with submission skills as he suffered three straight submission losses in 2010. He’s overcome that problem and went on to improve so much so that he went on a seven fight win streak.
Against Maia he would face one of the best grapplers in the division and the sport, so this would be a true test of how well his skills have improved in that area.
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