If the fans watching UFC on FX weren’t vocal enough about the lack of action in Friday night’s main event between Clay Guida and Gray Maynard, UFC President Dana White added an emphatic exclamation point on their frustration after the event.
In an interview with Fuel TV’s Ariel Helwani, White vocalized his disappointment with Guida’s performance.
“I would’ve bet anything that fight would’ve been entertaining,” White said.
Fans were surprised to see a new style from the typically highly aggressive Guida, who normally utilizes in-your-face movement to wear down his opponents and beat them in exciting fashion.
Instead, the in-your-face style looked more like a track-and-field competition as Maynard chased Guida around the cage for the better part of 25 minutes, practically begging him to engage.
“He was literally running, swinging at Clay Guida, trying to hit him,” White said. “That’s not a fight.”
Since Guida moved to the Greg Jackson gym, we have slowly seen him turn from being a wildman in the cage to a much more patient, gameplan-based fighter. While he’s still capable of pouring on the pressure and keeping his opponents off balance, Friday night’s main event went beyond that and into the territory of avoiding exchanges.
“Some goof put it in his head that running around in circles might win him the fight, and they were dead wrong,” White said. “It was a blowout by Gray Maynard.”
Referee Dan Miragliotta did eventually warn Guida about running away and even threatened to take a point if he did it again.
White agreed with that decision, but noted that he thought that it should’ve come earlier in the fight.
“If only one guy is willing to fight, you can’t have a fight,” White said, referring to Guida’s timid style in the cage.
In the end, Maynard was given the decision, and although White was happy with the outcome on the scorecards, he was still frustrated with what the main event said about the card as a whole.
“This was not the way that I wanted to return to Atlantic City,” he said.
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