Unheralded Fights: Demian Maia v. Jason "The Athlete" MacDonald

This fight took place at UFC 87 Seek and Destroy on August 8th, 2008 and there were many notable fights. Georges St. Pierre defended his Welterweight Title against Jon Fitch. Brock Lesnar sent Heath Herring off to the land of starring in God awful straight-to-DVD MMA movies. Kenny Florian derailed the Roger Huerta hype train and Jon "Bones" Jones made his UFC debut. None of these however, was the best fight of the night in my opinion.

The Pay Per View broadcast started off with a Middleweight bout between Demian Maia and Jason MacDonald. MacDonald had recently dispatched of Joe Doerksen via TKO and Maia was coming off a submission victory over Ed Herman, both at UFC 83. The game plans seemed pretty obvious. Jason would want to keep the fight standing so he could take full advantage of his 8" reach advantage and Demian would want to get it to the ground at all costs to use his ridiculous BJJ skills.

MacDonald however, decides to clinch within 20 seconds of the fight and Maia is more than happy to pull guard. Maia locks in a tight triangle and Joe Rogan immediately declares that "this is a wrap ladies and gentleman". Maia has the triangle locked for 40 full seconds even pulling down on his head and throwing elbows. Jason somehow pops out and immediately takes Maia's back with full hooks in. Maia gets it back to full guard shortly thereafter. MacDonald hits a few punches from the top and then HE locks in a tight guillotine with Maia bleeding all over Jason's side. Maia slips out and immediately takes Jason's back with both hooks in and locks up the rear naked choke with 40 seconds left in the round. He turns it into a body triangle. MacDonald defends and escapes before the horn sounds.

In between rounds Maia gets a cut on his eyebrow worked on.

Round two begins with Maia rocking him with a left hook and MacDonald immediately clinches him against the fence. They exchange knees and Maia gets the takedown. Maia almost immediately moves to full mount throwing punches and elbows cutting MacDonald. MacDonald is constantly busy and always looking to escape but Maia's top control is excellent. He gets the fight back to half guard and eventually escapes and gets on top of Maia end the round ends there.

MacDonald's corner is imploring him to keep the fight standing. "Do not take him to the fucking ground. Knock this guy out standing up." Solid, articulate advice says I.

Round three begins with Demian immediately getting a takedown and Jason reverses and gets top position. Maia the reverses him and goes directly to mount. He then rolls Jason over with strikes and takes his back. Demaian locks up the rear naked choke once more and MacDonald taps!

I like this fight every much and I really think it belonged on the UFC 100 Greatest Fights. MacDonald seemed hellbent on winning this fight on the floor which was a bad idea because Demian's striking was in it's infancy and MacDonald with the reach advantage should have been able to tear him apart. He didn't do that and paid for it but this is still one of the best ground fights I have seen in the UFC. I highly recommend everybody checks it out.

Thanks for reading this and feel free to comment. Any and all feedback/hatred/love notes appreciated.