In sport, every now and then a perfect match up comes along, a match up where two opponents skills are so evenly matched that it is really hard to separate them.
At UFC 194, one of these perfect match up's will take place. Icelandic Welterweight Gunnar 'Gunni' Nelson (14-1-1) will take on Brazilian Demian Maia. These men are masters of their crafts. Both have Brazilian Jiu Jitsu black belts and have made a name for themselves in their respective fighting careers by using that skill to devastating effect against their opponents. Between both men they have a combined total of 19 wins by submission. In 2013, Bleacher Report gave Maia a mention as one of the best grapplers in MMA
Nelson comes into this fight after a quiet enough year having only fought once in the last twelve months. His last fight was his first round submission of Brandon Thatch at UFC 189. Before that, Nelson suffered his first ever career defeat at the hands of Rick Story in October 2014. The Story fight seemed to show that Nelson had a hole in his game when it came to his striking ability. According to FightMetric, Story landed 168 significant strikes over their five round bout, Gunnar landed 53.
For his return to the Octagon, Nelson was matched up against one of the best strikers in the Welterweight Division, Brandon Thatch. Gunnar was the bookmakers underdog in that fight. It was very clear after ninety seconds of that fight that the bookies had got it wrong, when Nelson landed a left - right combination right on the chin of Thatch, knocking him down. From there Nelson's greatest asset, his ground game kicked in which resulted in a first round submission by way of a rear naked choke for Gunni.
After his impressive display over Thatch, Nelson seemed like the ideal candidate to headline the UFC's return to Dublin in October 2015. No suitable opponents could be found for Nelson to fight in the Three Arena. Maia was unbooked at the time and seemed like an ideal fight to make, considering he was also coming off a rear naked choke win, his coming against Neil Magny on the prelims for UFC 190 in August. But Maia was injured at the time so the fight was never booked and the UFC Dublin fans suffered accordingly. In September the UFC announced that Nelson would be taking on Maia at UFC 194. Fans of grappling haven't stopped celebrating since.
When it comes to resumes, Maia has pretty much done it all, he spent the earlier parts of his UFC career at Middleweight, there he fought some of the best fighters in the world such as former Middleweight Champion and fellow Brazilian Anderson Silva for the belt, and current Middleweight Champion Chris Weidman. He however did come up short in those bouts losing both by unanimous decision.
As mentioned earlier, Meia comes into this bout following a second round rear naked choke of Neil Magny at UFC 190 in August. The fight demonstrated how incredible his ground game still is even at thirty eight years of age. He controlled Magny with ease from their first exchange. According to Fightmetric Magny did not land a single significant strike on Meia. The Brazilian's ground game completely shut him down.
Meia had been criticised in the past for trying to stand and strike with opponents who had the advantage on the feet as opposed to using his Jiu Jitsu. This was evident in the Rory McDonald fight at UFC 170. Meia dominated the first round against the Red King as he kept the fight on the ground, in the later rounds he tried to stand and strike with the Canadian which led to him losing that fight on a unanimous decision, something that probably wouldn't have happened had he tried to get McDonald to the matt for rounds two and three. His performance against Magny, a man who was on a seven fight winning streak prior to their fight and has won two fights since that August bout, has shown that he is now fully starting to embrace his Jiu Jitsu side of his game again. Completely shutting down any opponent, especially a fighter in the top ten of one of the toughest divisions in the sport is no easy task, but Meia managed to make it look easy.
Thats what makes this match up so exciting. Two Jiu Jitsu masters, both coming into this fight after incredible performances and full of confidence fighting on the main card of one of the biggest UFC events of all time. Will both fighters avoid the takedowns and try to stand and bang? Will they treat this as a pure grappling exchange and see who manages to come out on top with their hand raised?
If Nelson wins this fight, it will catapult him back up the UFC Welterweight rankings. The fight against Rick Story was a steep learning curve, the Brandon Thatch fight was a return to form on the biggest stage imaginable, a win over Demian Maia at UFC 194? Who knows. One thing is for sure, a submission win for him over Maia will propel him not only up the rankings, but would give him the title as the best grappler in MMA today. Something everyone in the Welterweight division will take firm notice of.