Maia: Bisping is underrated

Your MMA: How good an opponent do you think Bisping is?

I think Bisping is a great fighter and a very tough opponent. His record speaks for itself, he’s only lost three times and one of those was in a different weight class, and he has fought a lot of hard opponents. I think he is underrated in many senses and it’s a great test for myself.

Your MMA: What do you think of Michael Bisping’s ground skills? How much better is your Jiu Jitsu than his?

We are not fighting Jiu Jitsu, we are competing in MMA. I’m sure my pure Jiu Jitsu is likely better than his, like his pure boxing is likely better than mine, but this is MMA and it completely changes the dynamics of everything.

I think he certainly has good ground skills for MMA, but he usually focuses on other strong points of his game, so he doesn’t emphasize much on his ground skills during his fights. I tend to likely have an advantage on the ground but this is a tough fight and we both can be surprised, so we both have to be ready for everything.

read entire interview…