Nick Maximov has high prize for two of his biggest mentors.
The protege of Nick and Nate Diaz recently improved his professional MMA record to 8-0 with a split decision win over Punahele Soriano in the co-main event of UFC Vegas 47 this past Saturday night, with Nate in the APEX cheering his fighter on.
Maximov admires the brotherly, popular duo of MMA fighters and hopes that he can live up the high expectations set for him and the 24- year-old prospects.
” I think Nick and Nate have to be the best martial artists ever.” Maximov stated on The MMA Hour. “Nick won every title if you think about it, he won Strikeforce, he beat Takanori Gomi when he was the man, Elite XC, I think Nick was the man. So if they tell me to do something, I’m gonna do it.”
Maximov began training at the Nick Diaz Academy when he was an early teenager after finding martial arts through a marathon of movies starring icons from Bruce Lee to Jackie Chan.
After seeing the Diaz Brothers compete, he knew being around them and their scrappy style was the right move to make to take his journey to a different level.
“I was a big Nate fan, but I was a really big Nick fan,” Maximov explained. “I liked Nate, but I really liked Nick. His fighting style was what I liked the most. I did not care about their interviews or other such things. I simply liked how they fought. I was just struck by how their jiujitsu is done, and how they fight.
“It was pretty rough at first. You get beat up, no doubt. Every day, I see black belts coming in and sometimes they are tapped out by the blue belts. It’s a hardcore gym, but I like it because it’s a martial artist gym. We train martial arts, not just fighting, it’s all about martial arts.
Maximov rose to the top of UFC 266’s main card after a great octagon debut in September against Cody Brundage. Maximov’s grappling and wrestling won the battle in the second round, where he had a hard time eating.
Of course, there’s always advantages to fighting inside the APEX, especially when fighters like Nate Diaz and Gilbert Melendez are in the small space shouting out instructions from the audience.
“I heard him in the back and each round he got closer and closer, and eventually in the third round he was damn near in the cage with me,” Maximov said of Diaz. “Like he was about to hop in and fight this dude for me. It was cool.
“Gilbert was there, too, and he’s a really good coach. It’s possible he could be better than him as a fighter .”
