Demian maia

Daman Maia was born on November 06 1977 in Sao Paulo in Brazil and is a Brazilian mixed marital artis fighter trained in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu style of fighting. He is also trained in Judo from his childhood but later in his teens he also learnt Karate and Kung Fu. He holds a second degree black belt in Brazilian Jiu jitsu and has earned several championships for Team Barsa. He earned his college degree in journalism and currently fights for Ultimate Fighting Championship organization.

Maia began his MMA career as he adored Royce Gracie from UFC Hall of Fame and was greatly inspired by him. He also states that his primary hero is Royce's brother, Rickson Garcie. He began his career at MMA in 2005 with his debut match victory against Lukas Chlewicki. He won the debut match when Maia submitted Chlewicki by armbar. Thereafter, a year later he was crowned as the 2007 Super Challenge Champion when he earned his three victories in one night.

Maia has defeated Tarsis Humphres, Rafael Lovato, Yushin Okami and Flavio Almeida at the World Wrestling Championships in the 77-87 kg division in 2007. In the under 83 kg belt, he won the 2007 Super Challenge when he beat Vitelmo Kubis Bandeira with is rear naked choke. The judge also ruled the decision in his favor in a fight against Gustavo Machado and thereafter he defeated Fabio Negao by guillotine choke in the finale. He intends not to hurt his opponent to win the fight and attributes developing his superior submission skills as a reason for this.

In August 2007, UFC announced to have signed a contract with Maia and was supposed to fight veteran Marvin Eastman. However, he could not fight with him as Eastman pulled out of the match due to eye surgery. Ryan Jensen trained with Team Quest was instated as Eastman's replacement. He won his match against Jensen on at UFC 77: Hostile Territory on October 20 at Cincinnati, Ohio. That night he won Submission of Night of Honors that paid him $40,000. On April 19, 2008, he fought another Team Quest fighter Ed Herman at UFC 83 in Montreal, Quebec. Maia was again paid $475,000 that night when defeated Herman by triangle choke in the second round. He also won Submission of Night of Honors for his victory.

In his third fight at UFC 87: Seek and Destroy, he defeated MacDonald by rear naked choke and earned $60,000 along with the award of Submission of Night. This victory and the award made him the first fighter to earn three-consecutive Submission of Night of Honors. He is known to be the best pure grappler in the history of UFC with his four consecutive submissions.