Demian Maia chokes out Jason MacDonald
Wednesday’s main event battle between Brazilian jiu-jitsu blackbelts, Demian Maia vs. Jake Shields, has the potential for the same back-and-forth grappling wizardry that happened at UFC 87 when Maia took on “The Athlete” Jason MacDonald. At the time in 2008, both 2x Submission of the Night awarded middleweights squared off in a highly-anticipated match-up of submission magicians.
Fight fans in the know got exactly what they asked for early and often, moments into the first round, Maia pulled guard and caught MacDonald in a tight triangle choke. After a scary 30 seconds, “The Athlete” powered out of the hold, reversed fortune, and took Maia’s back. From there, grappling aficionados were off to the races with the technical, ground game, chess match their hearts’ desired with MacDonald scoring some ground and pound followed by a guillotine choke attempt of his own. Of course, not to be outdone, Maia escaped the choke, took MacDonald’s, and, for the last minute of the round, Maia fought for a rear naked choke, which he would eventually catch MacDonald with in the final round.
Since dropping to welterweight, Maia has returned to his bread and butter of BJJ first and everything else second. What made the bout with MacDonald so exciting, it was another high level submission artist who wanted to sweep and sub Maia as much as Maia wanted to do so to him. As opposed to a striker wanting to keep Maia standing or a wrestler wanting to hold Maia in place, it was MacDonald’s eagerness to swap choke attempts that entertained the crowd and headlining bout this week in Brazil against Shields has the exact same potential.
The decorated BJJ blackbelt from Cesar Gracie Jiu-Jitsu, Shields is the former Strikeforce middleweight champion and the proud owner of 10 wins by submission in his 36 fight career. Shields will be more than ready for Maia who is riding a three fight win streak and looks poised to take a run at the division’s title just like the native of Sao Paulo did after forcing MacDonald to tap to a rear naked choke, which netted Maia his 3rd Submission of the Night bonus inside the Octagon.
