"He’s a very high-level jiu-jitsu fighter, a five-time champion in fact. I’ve got a lot of respect for what he’s done in the jiu-jitsu world. But I think we’ve seen time and time again that good mixed martial artists have been able to defeat high-level jiu-jitsu guys. Take even the other night in London, where Kevin Burns, in his first UFC fight, was able to get a triangle choke on Roan Carneiro, who is a high-level black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu. Maia is not like B.J. Penn who is great in jiu-jitsu but also dominant in all other facets. He is still fairly new to the MMA side of things so I’m hoping to go out there and put on a strong mixed martial arts fight and do much like what Nate Marquardt did to Dean Lister."
-- Jason MacDonald states the obvious in his SportsNet.ca blog: His middleweight UFC 87 fight against Demian Maia on August 9 is a mixed martial arts bout and not a Brazilian jiu-jitsu match. Maia is an Abu Dhabi champion who has defeated Ryan Jensen and Ed Herman with submissions in his first two Octagon appearances. He is really on another level in terms of skill when it comes to grappling. And in nearly 30 professional fights "The Athlete" has just three (technical) knockouts to his credit and 16 submission wins. It should be interesting to see how he approaches this fight with his strength all but nullified.
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