Demian Maia held his head high through what was a very clever game play by the third American Top Team wrestler he’s faced in a row – Colby Covington.
Covington managed to game the system and outpoint Maia to a decisive unanimous decision victory. Through all of that Maia remained the classiest MMA fighter around. He released a statement saying:
“I want to thank everyone for their support and cheer, in one more step in my path. The great lesson of the sport is knowing that competing always brings lessons, and we have to be thankful for victory and defeat for learning. I did my best, I made some mistakes and moved a little, which may have embarrassed the execution of my strategy, but that does not take the credit of my opponent, who deserved the victory, and I come out of my head high knowing that I fulfilled my Role as best I could, and I move on to the next step of the journey. Thank you all!”
Additionally Maia said he didn’t care for Covington’s comments as he apologized to Maia and explained he was making them to drum up publicity for the fight:
“What he said to me was, since the beginning, during the week, he said he respected me a lot and he was promoting the fight, and that was his way of promoting,” Maia said Saturday at the UFC Sao Paulo post-fight press conference.
“He told me that I’m a legend and that he admires me, and he only does [his trash talking] for promoting. Obviously, it’s not my style. I don’t like that style, but I don’t judge him.
“I think he’s free to do whatever he wants to promote. What matters is that he was respectful, he was correct to come and talk to me, so there’s no problem.
“I think sometimes the fighters aren’t very clear on things, and even myself, I’m a fighter, a lot of fighters make mistakes about working their image and how they market themselves,” Maia said.
“I think there’s a way of promoting yourself like (Conor) McGregor with intelligence, like Sonnen used to do.
“But I think it’s a fine line between destroying your image or building your image in the long run. I think people are thinking short-term.
“And besides that, McGregor’s style is risky because, as long as you’re winning, it’s fine. When you lose, you’re going to be remembered. It’s like Sonnen. He was a very tough fighter.
“He almost beat Anderson (Silva) at his height. And I see a lot of friends of mine who don’t follow fighting, and they used to say, ‘Sonnen just talks and he’s not that good,’ because he created that image and he talked a lot.
“Sonnen, to me, he’s a great athlete, but he created that image so much for himself that people don’t think he’s that good. They just think he talks. So I think it’s a risk you run when you do that.”
