Maynard Details How he Thought he Won at UFC 125
After a dominant first round and four closely contested rounds after it, Gray Maynard was sure he had posted his second win over Frankie Edgar and taken his UFC lightweight championship.
That first round, though, ultimately played a pivotal role in the fight, which ended in an anticlimactic draw on Saturday.
"I thought it was mine," a dejected Maynard said. "I thought I had the belt."
The fight headlined the pay-per-view portion of UFC 125 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. After Edgar topped B.J. Penn and won a rematch to defend his belt in 2010, he appeared he'd lose it in quick fashion to Maynard, who first defeated Edgar back in 2008 at UFC Fight Night 13.
At UFC 125, "The Bully" rocked the champ with a left hook, dropped him again with a pair of uppercuts, and essentially chased after and tagged him with a total of 97 strikes in those first five minutes.
Amazingly, Edgar (13-1-1 MMA, 8-1-1 UFC) survived, and Maynard (10-0-1 MMA, 8-0-1 UFC) knew he'd pay the price.
"I was swinging for the fences," Maynard admitted. "That's like a sprint. I had to pull back. I felt a little tired, and I had to ease back a little bit. I got going again in round three. I was trying to knock him out that whole round. That's a lot of work to do. He's a tough kid. Hat's off to him, but I thought that was my fight."
Saturday's judges were unanimous on a few points, including all of them scoring the opening round 10-8 for Maynard.
He thought it could have been even more of a blowout.
"You've got the round where it could have been 10-7, I thought," he said. "I dropped him like five times. He didn't land a punch. At least a 10-8, maybe even more."
"It could have been easily stopped."
The judges also unanimously gave rounds two and four to Edgar. But the third and fifth frames split the judges, who ultimately scored the fight 48-46, 46-48 and 47-47.
Only one judge Glenn Trowbridge gave Maynard the third round, which came as surprise to the fighter. Yet two Trowbridge and Patricia Morse-Jarman gave him the fifth, about which Maynard remains uncertain.
"I thought I won the third, for sure," he said. "The last round, we landed about even. I was going hard in the last, and I thought he backed up a lot. I shot, shot, shot."
Both in his post-fight speech and the post-show media conference, Maynard clearly was brooding. The sting of the draw was made even worse when UFC executive Craig Borsari announced the UFC was booking Edgar against WEC lightweight champ Anthony Pettis instead of doing an immediate rematch.
Of course, UFC president Dana White quickly had a change of heart and told us the organization instead will do Edgar vs. Maynard III.
"In the UFC, we do the right thing, and the right thing is to put on this rematch," he said.
That's good news for Maynard not because it'll mean a highly anticipated and potentially lucrative headliner, but because it'll give him another opportunity to prove he's the best in the 155-pound division.
"It's not about the money," he said. "I've been doing this since I was 3. It's about being on top."
MMAJunkie
