Eduardo Alonso, the manager of UFC middleweight submission machine
Demian Maia, has revealed his man wants to go head-to-head with former Strikeforce middleweight champion,
Jake Shields next inside the octagon, explaining these sorts of challenges are what still excite him in the sport.
Speaking via Tatame Magazine, Alonso said:
“It’s a personal desire, but I guess it’d be a good fight, an interesting challenge for Demian. For his record and skills as a fighter, I’m guessing it’d be interesting. Fighting top 10 guys is always interesting. Since he once was a champion in Strikeforce in this weight class and has great wins over top athletes like Dan Henderson, and because he likes to fight on the ground, I believe it’d be a great match-up against Demain.”
“We are still on the first talks with UFC, but our expectations are for him to fight in 2012. I guess there’s a possibility of a new event in Brazil, and that might be a facilitator. Or it can be in Japan in February, something that would be very interesting.”
As for Maia’s last fight with former Sengoku middleweight champion,
Jorge Santiago, Alonso said:
“Many times the guys who fight Demian on the ground do it defensively. That’s what happened, and that’s no reason for Santiago to be ashamed. If he couldn’t finish it, we gotta understand he was fighting another BJJ black belt. Independently of the not so positive professional record in UFC, he’s a really tough athlete, and that’s why he was a champion in Sengoku.”
“What made us proud was that Demian used correctly his game plan, he was capable of controlling the fight and didn’t take risks, he blocked Santiago’s best weapons. At any point Santiago was a threat to him, nor tried a sweep, an attack to his arm or neck. The main goal of the fight was to control and use the game plan to do a safe fight the best possible way.”
Maia and Shields would not doubt be a war on the ground but as is normal with these grappler vs. grappler fights I wouldn’t be surprised to see both men go blow-for-blow in a stand-up war as is normal with these encounters. Stay tuned to MMABay for more news on this potential fight as we get it
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