'Condit won't want to go to the ground with me”, says Demian

Demian (photo) has a great run at welterweight. Photo: Josh Hedges/UFC

Keeping an eye on the belt, Demian Maia knows that a victory this Saturday (27) over Carlos Condit could give him status as the next challenger in the welterweight division. With five consecutive victories, the jiu-jitsu ace admits that the path to his sixth triumph is no secret to anyone.

“I will always try to surprise with jiu-jitsu. Everybody knows it. Everyone knows he's going to try to fight and won't want to go to the ground with me. Of course he has weapons on the ground and I have weapons on my feet. But just look at the statistics, our preferences are very clear”, said the Brazilian in an interview with the website Combate.com.

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Current number three in the rankings, the São Paulo native believes that a victory over Condit will put him in a position to challenge for the belt soon. “I have to wait for the UFC’s decision. I would like them to schedule Woodley's fight against Thompson as quickly as possible and, God willing, if I win, they would schedule my title fight soon after. That would be the ideal scenario. But there's no point speculating. I have to go through the hardest part, which is winning the fight against Condit”, said Maia.

Condit is coming off a loss to Robbie Lawler in January of that year, when they narrowly missed out on winning the division title. For Demian, the fact that the North American came from a negative result doesn't influence anything, because, according to him, Condit lost fighting well and all his defeats were against champions or former champions, and he concluded by saying: “what I know is that He doesn't give up, he'll fight until the end, I'll have to know how to control him until the end. He is an excellent competitor.”

Demian Maia e Carlos Condit this Saturday (27th) the main fight of UFC on Fox 21. Maia comes from five consecutive victories, highlighting the last three performances, in which he completely dominated Neil Magny, Gunnar Nelson and Matt Brown, in sequence. Condit narrowly missed taking the belt from Lawler in January of this year, after having one of the best fights of recent times, won by Robbie in a split decision from the judges. Whoever emerges victorious from this fight puts themselves very close to a title fight.