UFC 95 Maia vs Sonnen - The Next Middleweight Champion?

Chael Sonnen vs Demian Maia clash will be yet another excellent stylistic matchup that makes the fight card a must-see for hardcore mixed martial arts fans.

Maia and Sonnen represent the same overall genre of fighting, as they both prefer to mix it up on the ground, but Maia is the jiu-jitsu specialist from Brazil while Sonnen is the wrestling star from Oregon.

Maia is the favorite as of now on betting odds of -300 to +220 for Sonnen. Maia comes in with a stellar record of 10-0 while Sonne is a respectable 23-9.

Those odds seem more than fair when you consider that Maia is one of the best pound-for-pound MMA jiu-jitsu specialists in the game today and Sonnen has already lost five times due to submission in his career out of nine losses.

Sonnen avenged one of those submission losses with a smarter gameplan against Paulo Filho in their November WEC bout, but going up against Maia, who’s considered by many to be the next big thing at the middleweight division, will be an entirely different challenge altogether.

Part of what makes Maia’s jiu-jitsu so dangerous is that he is not one of those wiry-thin, classic jiu-jitsu specialists like a Royce Gracie-type, he has the bulk and solid wrestling game to complement it.

Sonnen’s game plan, like most wrestling specialists, will probably be to wear him out early and stay on him as tightly as possible so that it he sweats a little bit and has a harder time in later rounds trying to pull off those submissions. Doing so will make Maia’s grip more slippery and also make it tougher to get in the right positions against Sonnen with his strong base.

But in the end, Maia should end up taking this one because Sonnen will need to execute a difficult gameplan to win at UFC 95. Maia meanwhile can afford to be a little more loose, and Sonnen is likely to be a bit on the defensive because he hasn’t seen a submission specialist of Maia’s caliber just yet in his career.

The Pick: Maia -300