UFC
Demian Maia disappointed in UFC 170 loss, credits Rory MacDonald for his performance
Feb 23, 2014 - 7:35:26 PM Demian Maia disappointed in UFC 170 loss, credits Rory MacDonald for his performance

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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

Demian Maia had a competitive fight with Rory MacDonald on Saturday at UFC 170, but lost the bout by decision. Maia discussed the loss in a post on his Facebook page, giving MacDonald credit for his performance, and lamenting his second straight loss.

The full statement is below:

"I want to thank everybody for the support. I did my best at UFC 170 and I have to give props for Rory MacDonald for his performance and the win. I'm happy that our fight was awarded Fight of the Night, but I obviously would rather have walked away with the win. I had a clear strategy for the fight, with plans A and B, and he also had a clear efficient strategy with alternatives. I felt that my stragegy worked well in some moments, but in other moments he managed to impose his strategy again in a more efficient way, and I may have got a little too anxious, getting a little lost and moving away from my fight plan, which might have ended up demanding a lot of myself and generating too much wear. Props to him, he is really a great fighter and deserved the win. I tried until the very end, the fight goes on, and now is time to go back home, stay with my family, hug my kids and my wife and very soon all will re-start again.

I want to thank all of my team without exceptions, my family, everybody from Demian Maia Jiu Jitsu, all of my training partners, my doctors, Needs Academia, my students and my sponsors Bad Boy, Amazoo Açaí, Probiótica and Leme Investimentos for the support.

I want to thank the UFC: Ultimate Fighting Championship for the opportunity and the Fight of the Night award. I want to thank all the support from the fans again, the press for the coverage they always give to us, and again the fight does continue. That's the beauty of this sport, the most important thing is to do your best and evolve with the experiences, correct the mistakes and come back to try one more time.

Thanks to all of you,

Demian Maia


Penick's Analysis: Maia's very classy in defeat here, discussing what went wrong while crediting his opponent for the win. He started off strong in the fight, he really did, but it wasn't something he was able to keep up for the full 15 minutes, and to MacDonald's credit it was because of what he did as well. Maia remains a top flight welterweight, but this was a big setback for him, and he'll need to rebound in a big way if he wants to attempt another run towards title contention.