("I’ve been doing this too long to take things for granted. I’ve seen it happen too often where a guy loses and then comes back and wins." Photo courtesy of UFC.com)
By CagePotato.com contributor Elias Cepeda
There’s a fun game you can play with undefeated UFC lightweight Gray Maynard: Ask him to name, let alone talk about, someone he’s beaten. He can’t do it.
It should be easy for the #1 title contender — he’s had just eleven fights in his four-and-a-half year MMA career, and hasn’t lost a single one. He has many more wins to choose from if you include his entire amateur wrestling career that dates back to his childhood.
Still, as he sits during some downtime between training on the Saturday exactly two weeks before he will face UFC lightweight champion Frankie Edgar at UFC 125 in Las Vegas, Maynard’s brain freezes when asked about his wins. Gray isn’t difficult to speak with, and his mind is sound. It just works a bit differently than most of ours.
Ask Maynard who he’s lost to and he can rattle ten names off in a row. “People say, ‘oh, you’ve never lost.’ Sure I have. I’ve been in combat sports since I was a kid and have lost lots of times from when I was three all the way through college.”
Gray seems to remember every time he’s come up short on the mats — recalling even grade-school losses with gritted teeth. “They still irk me today,” he says.