In 2013, Khabib Nurmagomedov dismantled Thiago Tavares one day after wearing a t-shirt that read “if sambo was easy it would be called jiu-jitsu” at the UFC Sao Paulo weigh-ins. In the end, no one was able to stop Nurmagomedov’s ground game before his retirement in 2020.
With Islam Makhachev now on the rise as Nurmagomedov’s protege in the lightweight division and gunning for a shot at UFC gold, longtime veteran Demian Maia sees Charles Oliveira, the uncrowned king in the 155-pound class, as the one to decipher the tricky puzzle.
“If there’s a man to beat that type of fighter, it’s Charles, because Charles has [a good] guard [game],” Maia said on this week’s episode of MMA Fighting podcast Trocacao Franca. To beat someone like this, you need [a good] guard. Enough guard to not only survive, but also offensive enough to make it dangerous. Charles has that. Charles makes a great fighter. He’s also dangerous .”
on his feet.
A good guard would not be enough to prevent Makhachev and Nurmagomedov nullifying their opponent’s jiu jitsu and taking them down round after round. Maia was in this situation throughout his MMA career.
“It was kind of the exact same strategy that I used to fight Ben Askren,” Maia said. Maia choked out Ben Askren, an Olympic wrestler who is also a former Bellator and ONE welterweight champion. Maia performed a back-naked choke in 2019.. I was immediately working after being taken down. You can go for a sweep or a submission during the takedown. Not that you can’t be off your back, but you don’t wanna be there early, when you opponent has too much energy to hold you and steal rounds.
“I had this drill back when I fought Ben Askren, he’d take me down and I would go for the ankle, a triangle, a sweep, you know? I still do these drills to this day. But I think you have to be the type of fighter Charles is to be someone like that. .”
These guys can’t be beat if you don’t know jiu-jitsu.
Maia, who returns to action Saturday in Europe against Benson Henderson in a grappling match at Polaris, made his welterweight debut in 2012 against Dong Hyun Kim on the same card that saw Nurmagomedov go the distance with Gleison Tibau, and Maia remembers watching “The Eagle” work out in the locker room prior to UFC 148.
“He was warming up with us, such a nice guy,” Maia said. “[Coach] ‘Leozinho’ Vieira said, ‘Demian, this kid is so tough. He’ll be champion one day.’ I asked him if he had good wrestling and he said, ‘No, he has good jiu-jitsu.’ He trained with a bunch of jiu-jitsu guys at AKA and has that incredible background in wrestling and sambo, so he combined all that.”
Maia said that if Makhachev is paired with , “I’d put onto Oliveira for a win.” Maia stated that although he is not a gambler, he would.
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