Demian Maia Responds To Diego Sanchez’s Call Out

Following his win over Mickey Gall at UFC 235, Deigo Sanchez told the media that he wanted to fight Demian next. He said that he had Maia had agreed to fight on social media before but the UFC decided against the fight at the time.

Maia, who is coming off of a win against Lyman Good at UFC Fortaleza, spoke to MMA Fighting about the call out and potential fight.

”I have a lot of respect for Diego, he is a warrior, and like I said on my Twitter, you can never underestimate experience. I really thought it was nice to see him go against the odds and get the win. It’s not easy to be competing at a high level for so long, it’s a tough game, and he deserves a lot of recognition. So, I would be honored to compete against him, after all the history we both have in the sport. Why not?

“[Sanchez] approached me before the [Kamaru] Usman fight [at UFC Chile], was super respectful and I told him that it would be an honour but it’s obviously not up to us. Time has gone by, we both had some fights and everybody knows that I don’t go out challenging people, it’s not my style.

”I think if there’s a time this can make sense, it is now and if it doesn’t happen now, it most likely won’t ever happen.

”I would like to fight in Rio but at this stage in my career, I feel like having a fight with an opponent that makes sense for the moment is the most important thing for me, so the opponent is more important than the card in a sense. I already fought pretty much everybody in the division, including the top three fighters in the weight class in a row, and I’m 41, getting to probably my last fights, so now I think that fights that are fun are the most important thing, not necessarily always tied to rankings.

”So ideally any card around May or June would be interesting with the right opponent. With that said, I leave that to my manager] Eduardo [Alonso] and the UFC and I trust them to come up with something that makes sense for everybody, whether is Diego or someone else.

”Fights are fights. It’s a cliche, but it’s true, you can never know how they’ll go down for sure until you do it. Diego has a very good ground game, often underrated, is experienced, tough, has a lot of heart and has a great pace. I wouldn’t underestimate him at all, and I think it would be fun, with a lot of interesting scrambles. He is an offensive fighter, so he wouldn’t just try to avoid grappling at any costs, so it would be fun to watch, for sure.”

Would you like to see Maia vs Sanchez go down?

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