UFC Fight Night 19 Preview: The Main Card

Gray Maynard vs. Roger Huerta

The Breakdown: There is no fury like a Dana scorned. That is a lesson Huerta is coming to grips with as his final UFC-contracted bout comes against the human battering ram known as Gray Maynard. For those not in the know, Huerta complained publicly about fighter compensation and then took an extended vacation from the UFC to try his luck in Hollywood. Despite being built into a star by the UFC’s marketing machinations, the holes in Huerta’s wrestling and striking were on display for all to see in bouts against Kenny Florian and Clay Guida. Maynard’s combination of stultifying wrestling and perpetually improving boxing means Huerta is being lined up for a loss.

Just look at Huerta’s struggles in the past to stop wrestlers like Douglas Evans and Guida from scoring takedowns at will. Now consider Maynard’s purebred wrestling pedigree for all the proof you need that Maynard will control the terms of engagement from the opening bell. While Huerta has always relied on his striking to get him out of trouble, his boxing is substandard and he has the bad habit of telegraphing his kicks and knees by either opening his stance too early or planting his lead foot too far out in front. With Maynard having ditched his haymaker style in favor of a more disciplined approach, Huerta won’t have the luxury of fighting a reckless opponent and it doesn’t take much more than a sound game plan to knock off the UFC’s would-be Mexican superstar.

The X Factor: For all of Maynard’s obvious talent, he’s still very much a straight-up boxer/wrestler archetype, and that is something Huerta can take advantage of. One obvious weakness is that Maynard checks leg kicks about as often as Matthew McConaughey stars in a quality movie. Huerta may not be Buakaw, but neither is Jim Miller. Miller was able to land both leg and body kicks with ease against Maynard, who appeared clueless on how to defend them. The other hole in Maynard’s style is his habit of going for body blows without setting them up properly, which only leaves him wide open for counters upstairs. In order for Huerta to even think of capitalizing on that, though, he’ll have to keep his punches short and his feet moving because his chin won’t keep him upright for long if he tries his Julio Cesar Chavez impersonation on Maynard.

The Bottom Line: The problem for Huerta here is that even if he strikes the right balance on the feet, there isn’t a thing he can do to stop from getting sucked into the black hole that is Maynard’s shot. Huerta already got a reprieve from the fight gods in his fight with Guida when he hit that unholy knee. Expecting the same against an even better version of the same fighter makes my inner statistician laugh. Maynard will learn from Guida’s Waterloo moment: He’ll keep Huerta horizontal while methodically wearing him down from half-guard before eventually taking a bloody ground-and-pound TKO win.