After losses to Georges St. Pierre and Jake Ellenberger, Shields’ future might be on the middle weight class again, and there’re people who want him there: Eduardo Alonso, manager of the BJJ black belt Demian Maia.
“It’s a personal desire, but I guess it’d be a good fight, an interesting challenge for Demian. For his record and skills as a fighter, I’m guessing it’d be interesting”, said the manager to TATAME.
Both Jiu-Jitsu experts, Demian and Shields have always used efficiently the gentle art in MMA. While the Brazilian got eight of his 15 wins by submission, Jake forced the tappout 10 times within 26 triumphs.
“Fighting top 10 guys is always interesting”, says Alonso, explaining his “choice”. “Since he once was a champion in Strikeforce in this weight class and has great wins over top athletes like Dan Henderson, and because he likes to fight on the ground, I believe it’d be a great match-up against Demain”.
The manager tells, however, that he haven’t started negotiating Demian’s next fight with the UFC, but hopes to see him in action in January, in possible cars in Brazil or on the edition scheduled in Japan, in February.
“We are still on the first talks with UFC, but our expectations are for him to fight in 2012. I guess there’s a possibility of a new event in Brazil, and that might be a facilitator. Or it can be in Japan in February, something that would be very interesting”, tells.
Happy with the recent wins of the middleweight fighter, Eduardo responds to the critics about Demian not having submitted his opponents lately. After five consecutive wins via submission, between 2007 and 2009, the BJJ haven’t accomplished it ever since, including his last fight against another Brazilian, Jorge Santiago, at UFC 136.
“Many times the guys who fight Demian on the ground do it defensively. That’s what happened, and that’s no reason for Santiago to be ashamed. If he couldn’t finish it, we gotta understand he was fighting another BJJ black belt. Independently of the not so positive professional record in UFC, he’s a really tough athlete, and that’s why he was a champion in Sengoku”, explains.
“What made us proud was that Demian used correctly his game plan, he was capable of controlling the fight and didn’t take risks, he blocked Santiago’s best weapons. At any point Santiago was a threat to him, nor tried a sweep, an attack to his arm or neck. The main goal of the fight was to control and use the game plan to do a safe fight the best possible way”, completes.
via:TATAME.com
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