Demian Maia Reveals Timeline for his Retirement From MMA

Demian Maia is looking for the exit door on his MMA career.

Maia does have his next fight as he’s slated to fight Kamaru Usman in a welterweight bout that will serve as the headliner of the upcoming UFC Chile event.

Maia is in an interesting spot right now in his pro-MMA career. Maia suffered a unanimous decision loss to UFC welterweight champion Tyron Woodley after five lackluster rounds at the UFC 214. This loss snapped his seven fight winning streak, which included a notable first-round submission of ex-interim-champ Carlos Condit.

Moving on to his latest fight, which was a unanimous decision loss to Colby Covington in the co-main event of UFC Sao Paulo, which took place on took place on Saturday, October 28, 2017, at Ginásio do Ibirapuera in São Paulo, Brazil on FOX Sports 1.

Maia’s (25-8) decision to drop from middleweight to welterweight in 2012 and since then, he has dropped to 10-4 at that weight. After the fight, he went on record by making it known that he is considering to retire. It should be noted that Maia has one fight left on his deal with the UFC.

During a recent interview with Ariel Helwani of The MMA Hour, Maia opened up on when he plans to retire.

"I’m okay, I'm happy, the UFC’s happy, I think everything is set up right now. For me, it’s going to be a challenge for sure but i’m thinking that I want to fight this year, maybe next year finish these fights on my contract. You know I love to fight and I’m still performing, well doing training camps but I don’t know if i’m still fighting after next year. This could be my last contract with the UFC then after that, I’m retired.

Yeah, I think so [that these last four fights will be it]. Not because I don’t like or enjoy, almost 11 years in this game, UFC and it’s a lot of commitment, a lot of pressure. And also I want to have different different projects that I like to do and I want to be a little bit more with family and kids and give more time for them also.”

UFC Chile (Fight Night 129) is set to take place on Saturday, May 19, 2018, at Movistar Arena in Santiago, Chile.