Demian celebrates the fight at home and guarantees he learned lessons from defeat

D. Maia (photo) fights in São Paulo (Photo: Reproduction Facebook UFC)

After losing to the champion Tyron woodley at UFC 214, Demian Maia returns to the Octagon this Saturday (28) for another Ultimate fight in São Paulo, his hometown. The Brazilian admits an extra motivation for fighting at the Ibirapuera Gymnasium, a place he considers “a landmark” of the sport and guaranteed that he learned valuable lessons in the defeat to Woodley, which he hopes to take to the duel against his promise Colby covington.

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Admitting that he is heading towards the end of his career, Demian said he is fulfilling a dream with a fight for the UFC in his hometown, but he guarantees that he is not thinking about records – if he beats Covington, the Brazilian will equal Michael Bisping as the biggest fight winner in the history of Ultimate (20).

“Any milestone, any record is very gratifying. If I achieve this it will be really cool, but I don't worry about it. My total focus is on this fight and achieving this record is just a consequence of the work done. I'm going to fight at the Ibirapuera Gymnasium, which is a milestone for me. I was born and raised here, I fought a lot in this gym, I saw the growth of vale tudo and MMA here, so it's really cool, as I'm approaching the end of my career, to be able to make this dream come true”, declared Demian.

With little time to prepare to face Woodley, the jiu-jitsu world champion had to give up part of his training routine to get the chance to fight for the welterweight belt. Even though the bet didn't pay off, Demian guarantees that he brought valuable lessons from his training camp to “The Chosen One” and implemented them in the preparation period for the duel against Covington.

“We got a lot of good things out of camp for Woodley. In the time I had, we managed to have a very good camp and discovered very good things that we needed to adapt due to the short time and now we have implemented them more completely for this preparation. Now let’s see if it will work or not”, pondered Demian.