Gil Martinez Has No Doubt Gray Maynard Will Defeat Frankie Edgar at UFC 125

Gil Martinez has spent many years studying “the sweet science”, otherwise known as boxing and for the last few years he has been educating the world class fighters at Xtreme Couture on the art of striking.

In order to truly be the best, one must work diligently, and that is exactly what Martinez does day in and day out. The standard eight-hour work day fails to compare to the 14 hours a day that the famed boxing coach spends at Xtreme Couture.

“My days usually start around 6:00 A.M. and we go until about 8:00 P.M. I have a break here and there, but mainly it’s one guy after another all day long,” Martinez explained. “They’re long days, that’s for sure, and other than Gray (Maynard), I have a few boxers and one of them is Anthony Martinez and he’ll be fighting in January. Another person that I’m very excited to be working with is Michael Chandler, he is a wrestler who reminds me a lot of Gray and he just signed with Bellator. Jay Hieron will also be fighting with Bellator, and John Alessio will be fighting again and he’s doing exceptionally well right now.”

Martinez began working with the aforementioned Maynard back in 2008 and has been refining the lightweight’s skills for the last six training camps.

“The very first fight that I worked with Gray was the first fight with Frankie (Edgar), and I worked with him for about three weeks before his fight. He is such a competitor and it’s been such a pleasure working with him, he’s done great with everything,” Martinez said.

“Gray’s always at the gym and he’s one of those guys that you pretty much have to kick out of the gym. Other than going to Couture’s gym (Xtreme Couture), he comes to my gym to work with my boxers and I think that’s one of the things that has helped take his boxing to the next level.”

Before entering the sport and studying boxing, Maynard spent many years competing as an amateur wrestler and was an All-American at Michigan State in 2001. According to Martinez, if boxing had been available to Maynard growing up, he would have had two loves.

“With Gray, the main thing is that he really, really loves boxing and he says that he wishes he would’ve had a place to train when he was younger, because he would loved to [have] boxed,” Martinez elaborated. “He’s a huge boxing fan and anytime there’s a big fight here in Vegas we’ll go to the fight, so he’s big fan and that makes it easy for me to teach him because he loves it so much.

“There are things I teach him and before I teach him certain things, I think this will probably take him two or three weeks to get down and he’ll have it down within days, it’s incredible. With his drive, it’s impossible for him to fail because he just loves it so much.”

Maynard will put that drive to the test at UFC 125 when he faces a man he has already defeated once, lightweight champion Frankie Edgar. Good health and a positive atmosphere are merely two things that have been a part of this training camp, and Martinez fully expects his fighter to once again defeat Edgar to become the number one lightweight in the world.

“It’s really been an upbeat feel in the gym, very positive, and the one thing that I really like is that this is the first time since I started working with Gray that he has been healthy and as close to one-hundred percent as possible,” Martinez explained. “Every other time and every other camp, he’s had some kind of injury to work through, but this time we’ve been injury-free and the progress he has made from the start of this camp to now has been incredible. I cannot be happier with everything he’s doing right now, from his movement, to the speed with his hands, the quickness in his feet, and I think a lot of people are going to be surprised when he takes that belt on January 1st.”

If Martinez is correct and his fighter is successful in becoming the king of the lightweight division on New Year's Day, it will be one of the greatest days of not only his professional career, but of his life.

“It’s pretty hard to put into words, because that would be one of the greatest days of my life. Gray in my opinion is very deserving of that belt. The last few guys that Gray has faced have all been left-handed guys. This is the first time we can really go back to fighting a right-handed fighter, which is a lot easier than fighting a left-handed fighter,” Martinez stated.

“I have no doubt in my mind that Gray Maynard will be the World Lightweight Champion, and that’s going to be a great way to start 2011.”