The August 16th UFC Fight Night event has received a shake-up, as Abel Trujillo has pulled out of his match with Ross Pearson due to an injury. Stepping up onto the main card to face Pearson will be Gray Maynard, who was scheduled to fight Fabricio Camoes.
It is a sign of how far Maynard’s star has fallen since having been within reach of being Lightweight Champion in his match with Frankie Edgar a few years back. Since then his career has seen him lose the re-match to Edgar after earning a draw with the champion, a weak attempt to drop to 145 lbs that resulted in nothing positive, and two straight first round losses. Gray Maynard was on his way out of the UFC, but a match with Pearson and a win could be the factor that holds of a pink slip for ‘The Bully’.
Pearson was in a basically pick ’em fight with Trujillo, who is a tough fighter but comes with little name recognition. In his last outing, Pearson took a controversial loss to Diego Sanchez. This was a match that the judging saw a SD for Sanchez, causing UFC President Dana White to comment afterwards ‘we are going to treat this fight as win for Pearson’.
Maynard is going to have a reach and an overall striking disadvantage with Pearson, so if it stays on it’s feet and they fight at a distance it favors Pearson heavily. For Maynard, it is a chance to prove his ability to withstand some punches, since that has come into question with two straight first round TKO losses. But MAynard’s best case scenario is going to be to wrestle and get Pearson down, or at least push him against the fence and control the distance. Though he is older, Maynard can still dish out punishment if given the chance, and he will need to do it inside.
Pearson is going to be in the same boat as he was with Trujillo, in that a win puts him back on track, but he needs a spectacular win to really get attention. Trujillo lacked name recognition, and Maynard’s star has fallen enough that Pearson will not get a big jump in rating with a win over Maynard. Look for the match to also be a near pick ’em fight, with added pressure on Pearson to win big.
