After a lackluster UFC 209, Demian Maia is feeling pretty confident he can reign over the welterweight division and out sell both of the UFC 209 headliners – Stephen “Wonderboy” Thompson and Tyron Woodley.
Even though in the past Maia has abstained from verbally playing into the promotion’s hands he declared on the recent MMA Hour how he feels about the entire ordeal:
“I think if I just go there and win the fight. Everybody says this guy sells fight, and that guy doesn’t. The reality is no one in the welterweight division sells fights well. In my last fight I submit, a lot of fights I have great performances and people want to watch my fights. I’m not saying bad about the last fight, but, everybody knew it didn’t sell well, it’s not so exciting. So, it’s just not my problem, it’s all together. UFC needs to promote me a little bit more and welterweight is a weight that is hard to sell nowadays. And that’s it, sometimes people believe in lies, and they repeat the lies that people start to believe, ‘Demian doesn’t fight for the title because he doesn’t sell.’ I think that’s not true. I don’t think I wouldn’t sell worse than ‘Wonderboy’ or Woodley did. I think I can sell better.“
Of course the very same edition of the mma hour featured his future opponent – Jorge Masvidal who he will be facing rather soon over the title shot that was promised to him. Masvidal feels like the UFC is using him to eliminate the fighters they don’t like.
“I got the call from UFC, and UFC used to not like me not too long ago; but, they figured out one thing, they can use me to take out all the guys the don’t like. So, I’m here baby, I’m going to do what I do come May 13,”
adding:
“Because they did the math, it’s ancient secret math. Do you understand what I’m saying,” said Masvidal. “You’re looking at me and like, ‘Man, this dude is complete, bro. This guy is a problem in all f*cking areas. We could use this guy to eliminate the guys we don’t like. So maybe Masvidal is kind of wild, he’s a spick, we can’t push him that much, but we can use him to eliminate the others becasue this guy is a real bad guy.’”
Masvidal is also looking to bet Dana White on the outcome of the Maia match but the big boss himself is not biting for now:
“I can wrestle my a*s off, I ain’t got nothing to worry about. I’m betting the house on this. I been calling Dana to see if he’ll take a $200K bet, but he hasn’t taken it yet.”
