Demian Maia won’t close the door on a return to competition in grappling or mixed martial arts, but one sport seems more viable at the moment.
A former UFC title contender at middleweight and welterweight, the jiu-jitsu phenom entered the octagon for the final time in June 2021, when he lost a decision to future champion Belal Muhammad. He never meant for that to be his final fight, but that’s how things played out.
At 48, Maia is staying busy with his jiu-jitsu gym in Sao Paulo, working as color commentary
work for the UFC on Paramount+, coaching fighters like Ian Machado Garry and Charles Oliveira, and also teaching seminars around the world. Still, he would still re-focus on training for one last UFC bout.
“[The door] is closing, but I’d be lying if I said that, if the UFC came to me with an offer for a meaningful fight, in the right setting, I wouldn’t do it,” Maia told MMA Fighting, “If it made sense and it was in a place like Rio de Janeiro or Las Vegas, where I’ve fought so many times and have so much history, I would definitely consider it.”
Maia competed 33 times under the UFC banner with half of his 22 victories coming by way of submission against the likes of Carlos Condit, Chael Sonnen, Ben Askren, Matt Brown and Neil Magny. He was on a three-fight winning streak before losing to Gilbert Burns and Muhammad in his final appearances.
“I do feel like I never got a proper farewell, you know?” Maia said. “It all ended in a bit of an anticlimactic way. I lost to Belal Muhammad in 2021. I won one round, he won two. It wasn’t a particularly exciting fight. Even back then, I already wanted one more fight so I could retire. I was already thinking about stepping away, but it never happened. So there’s always that feeling of, ‘Man, I wish I had been able to close that chapter,’ and I never got the chance. I think it’s very unlikely the UFC would want to make something like that happen, but this sport surprises us every single day.”
Maia has competed three times in grappling matches since his last UFC fight, tapping out Alex Oliveira and Sang Wook Kim with a decision win over Benson Henderson in between. Maia revealed he gets offers “all the time by pretty much every organization” for more matches, but nothing has sounded interesting enough.
“We just haven’t signed anything yet because nothing has really made my eyes light up,” Maia said. “There hasn’t been an opponent where I thought, ‘That’s the guy I want, that’s the money I want.’ I’m not worried about it because I’ll compete if it’s something that makes sense, something I enjoy, and something I think is cool, and offers keep coming all the time.”
“A really fun match would be against Nate or Nick Diaz, the Diaz brothers, because those guys bring a ton of hype,” he added. “They’re both very good at jiu-jitsu and they’ll attract a huge audience. That’s interesting because I’d get to benefit from the buzz they generate. And there’s Georges St-Pierre. That goes without saying. He’s an incredibly tough competitor, an outstanding jiu-jitsu practitioner under Danaher, one of the best coaches in the world.”
Maia revealed he was approached by Hype with an offer to face Arman Tsarukyan this past March in Rio de Janeiro, but the call came with less than a week’s notice while he was out of the country on a seminar tour. Tsarukyan ended up choking out Muhammad Mokaev instead.
“He’s seriously impressive, his grappling is top-notch,” Maia said when asked if Tsarukyan would be an opponent of interest in the future. “It would’ve had to be for a lot of money because that guy is tough as hell [laughs].”
