Demian Maia is sticking to grappling after a long UFC career.
The 33-time octagon vet is set to face former UFC and WEC champion Benson Henderson, who steps on the mat to grapple him on Saturday at Polaris 20 in the U.K. It’s one of many unique grappling challenges Maia hopes to face against fellow MMA standouts.
Maia traveled to New York and Belem, Brazil, to work with the legendary Marcelo Garcia and rising talent like Mica Galvao ahead of the Polaris 20. Yet, he doesn’t expect Henderson to bring the most up-to-date techniques into this weekend’s jiu-jitsu matchup.
“There is something MMA fighters possess that jiu jitsu men don’t. It’s the ability do an anti-game very effectively,” Maia stated on this week’s episode of MMA Fighting podcast Trocacao Franca . “MMA fighters don’t need to be in your guard if they aren’t required.” They don’t accept positions, they explode out of positions like crazy. Jiu-jitsu men will occasionally think about this for a while, making things easier. MMA guys will simply explode out of a position like crazy — sometimes they will fall into a trap, but many times they make things more difficult.”
Maia returned to grappling in April, just 10 months after his final UFC appearance, and tapped fellow octagon veteran Alex Oliveira with a triangle choke in Sao Paulo, Brazil. According to the two-time UFC title challenger, going from MMA to grappling allows you to use several techniques that wouldn’t be an option for MMA bouts.
” There are some positions that you shouldn’t use in MMA, Maia stated. “It’s too dangerous to do in MMA, and you can do in jiu-jitsu. It gives you different possibilities when you don’t have a punch coming your way.”
In the past, MMA veterans grappling against decorated jiu-jitsu players has sometimes resulted in lackluster matches, such as when Brendan Schaub infamously fought to a draw with ADCC champion Roberto “Cyborg” Abreu. However, Henderson has always been involved in grappling during his Bellator career. He defeated Ben Saunders in Las Vegas in a no-gi bout. Maia does not expect Henderson to be playing Schaub’s.
“I hope he doesn’t [stall], otherwise it’s too boring for the promotion and the audience,” Maia said. “In my case, in MMA, sometimes I would chase the guy the entire time, and it would be a boring fight because he was doing an anti-game, and that wasn’t my fault. I never ran away from a fight, you know? When I lost, I would always try. People say that Demian lost a boring fight. But it was not my fault. My opponent did an anti-game, and didn’t engage in any attempt to knock me out .”
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“[Henderson] “He’s good at ankle locks and guillotines,” said he. He defends his back really well. He has good jiu-jitsu game and competes a lot, has experience. He is a great jiujitsu person .”
Maia hasn’t ruled out entering regular jiu-jitsu tournaments in the future after experiencing the atmosphere of a jiu-jitsu event in Sao Paulo.
” In jiu jitsu you only need to depend on your own skills,” he stated. “MMA is a different sport. MMA is a show business, it’s not just a sport, and it depends on you pleasing the promoter so they put you in an interesting fight. Is there a sportive side of it? Yes. Can you earn it? Sure. It’s up to you. In jiu-jitsu, I don’t depend on someone liking me so I can compete in the Worlds or Pan-American, for example.”
As someone who started his transition from pure grappling to MMA two decades ago, Maia likes what he’s been seeing from fellow jiu-jitsu legend Marcus Buchecha, who is 3-0 as a heavyweight in ONE Championship. Maia stated Buchecha’s “consistent” play shows that he is the best jiu jitsu fighter in the cages.
“‘Leozinho’ [Vieira], his coach, helped me in a few camps, and he’s seen the way we train, and I think he’s implementing that in Buchecha’s training,” Maia said. He should be able to keep that consistency, know how to use his Jiu-jitsu without being a striker, and learn the correct way to train to become the best champion.
Buchecha was not the first jiu jitsu master to try MMA or vale tudo. Legends have tried them before, but they didn’t really go head-first. Maia named Andre Galvao, Marcelinho Garcia, Alexandre Ribeiro and Roger Gracie, who have 28 jiu-jitsu world titles and 13 ADCC golds medals combined, as the sport’s biggest what-ifs.
“They are fighters who ended up not doing it because they were doing so well in jiu-jitsu, [and] with a life structured around jiu-jitsu with gyms, seminars and classes, that it’s just so hard to drop it and do [MMA],” he said. They were champions of jiujitsu, but they didn’t give the sport a shot because they felt like “I’ll have to quit everything and train MMA. Stop making money, teach seminars, and leave my gym. And the promoter winds up liking me ?'”
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Galvao fought seven times in MMA between 2008 and 2010, going 5-2 with his final bout being a loss to future champion Tyron Woodley at Strikeforce. Gracie, 8-2 in MMA, came up short in his sole UFC bout to Tim Kennedy, but retired as the ONE Championship light heavyweight titleholder. Garcia’s only appearance in a cage ended in a doctor’s stoppage loss to Dae Won Kim at K-1 Hero’s in 2007, while Ribeiro decided not to continue in the sport after back-to-back knockout wins in Sengoku in the late 2000s.
” I’d love to know how they would do, if they continue,” Maia stated. “Life took them someplace else. Surrounded by a structure focused on their styles, I’m sure there’s no way it would go wrong after everything they have accomplished in jiu-jitsu.”
Maia said fighting in MMA for nearly two decades has given him plenty of knowledge to coach fellow grapplers in the cage. He’s more than happy to open the doors of his Sao Paulo gym to welcome the likes of Mica Galvao, Felipe Pena, and Fellipe Andrew if they decide to make the jump one day.
“They have to know if they really like it, if they want it,” Maia said. “If you’re doing just for fame and money, it doesn’t work, because you have to like [fighting] first. If they like it, I’m sure that, God willing, I still can give them a little help.”
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