Always mild-mannered, Demian Maia is probably the last person you’d expect to be getting into a bar brawl or any type of fight outside the octagon. However, in a recent interview on the Inteligencia Ltda. Podcast, the Brazilian legend told the story of the time he was involved in quite the altercation with a middle eastern gang in Scandinavia.
Maia said that it all happened while he was training in Sweden and went out afterwards to a local club with some of his training partners. While Sweden is generally a very safe place to visit, this specific area was not as it was overwhelmed with gang violence by immigrants who had control over the area.
Demian Maia Says This Behaviour Was Out Of Character
At the end of the night as the club was turning their lights on to kick everyone out, Maia was pushed by one of the local gang members and instantly reacted with a vicious elbow, dropping the assailant on the spot. Maia said afterwards he instantly regretted throwing the elbow as he thought that he may have killed him and that he did it because he was just angry with where he was at in his fight career.
At this point, Maia knew he had set off a brawl and braced himself for the scuffle that was about to ensue when a man came up to him and stabbed him right in the stomach.
“Suddenly, I see a small guy coming up beside me quietly. All this I’m talking about was in five or six seconds, I don’t know. But very fast. The elbow, two punches. I walked backward, the guy came and hit me in the belly. This guy didn’t hit me in the belly, he stabbed me and I knew it right away.” (transcribed by Milan Ordonez, bloodyelbow.com)
Maia added that he reunited with his friends and was eventually rushed to the hospital, luckily escaping with no life-threatening injuries.
The BJJ black belt last fought against Belal Muhammad at UFC 263 this past June in his retirement fight where he fell via unanimous decision.
What would you have done differently in this situation if you were Demian Maia?