Photo via Tatame.com
Former UFC lightweight contender Gray ‘The Bully’ Maynard is in Rio de Janeiro for three weeks exclusively to help featherweight champ Jose Aldo prepare for his upcoming title fight with Chad Mendes at UFC 142.
As a decorated wrestler in his college years, who better than him to help Aldo prepare for another Division I wrestler ‘The Bully’.
Maynard talked to Tatame.com about training at Nova Uniao with Aldo, as well as giving his fight prediction but you’ll have to hit the link to read those comments.
How did you end up here at Nova Uniao?
Me and Jose Aldo met few times at UFC’s backstage. But it was at UFC 136 I met him at the pre-fight press conference. I like the way he fights, and I have always admired him as a person and a fighter. He has always been nice to me and when I knew he’s fight Chad Mendes I offered him some help and he said he’d be grateful. Jose Aldo is a great guy and that’s how I end up here. I arrived yesterday and went straight to the Jiu-Jitsu classes and it was really good.Could you tell how Jose Aldo’s takedown defenses are?
He knows how to defend the takedowns very well, I trained with him and it was hard for me to take him down. But actually I’ll stay for a short period of time, so he knows what he knows, he knows what he gotta do, but we’ve watched many of his fights and I can tell you he doesn’t need my help all that much, he’s pretty good at this. I’m just here to push him and help him with the little things and, if I’m able to, cooperate. I’ll try to tell him about my experience at college at Wrestling.