Gray Maynard is one of the best lightweights in the world, and his record definitely proves it. His list of victims include; Roger Huerta, Jim Miller, Rich Clementi, Frankie Edgar, Dennis Siver, Joe Veres and most recently Nate Diaz. He has a 9 second knockout added to his resume and is arguably the best wrestler in the division. Unbeaten in his MMA career, Gray “The Bully” Maynard is waiting for his opportunity to fight for gold.

Elie: What are your thoughts on your last fight against Nate Diaz?
Gray: After my last fight, any time you’re going up against a tall, long, lefty, who’s got great jiu-jitsu, I mean it’s never going to be like pretty. Anytime you’re going up against Nick or Nate, the win isn’t like ‘oh going to be a pretty knockout’, it’s going to be a scrap, it’s going to be get in there and you get the job done. And that’s what we kind of plan for, maybe I could of taken him down a couple more times, but I wanted to make sure that I didn’t get caught in some stuff. It was a fight and he’s a tuff kid.

Elie: I interviewed BJ in a previous issue and he was actually surprised that you didn’t get the next title shot, were you surprised since you had already beaten Frankie Edgar?
Gray: I think people don’t understand how much goes into all this stuff. They put in so much time in marketing, so with that, it was more they wanted to have a guy I think even before I was going up against Nate. They wanted to have a guy to start that going. I don’t think that it’s my only chance, it will come around. I’ve just got to keep in the gym and keep going hard and know that these guys do have a plan and I’ve just got to be apart of that plan.

Elie: Your very close to the title, do you want that shot?
Gray: Oh of course, of course I want that shot, but I want it to be good timing. Obviously we weren’t trying to have a plan to like, ‘alright when I beat Nate we’re going to come out and tell the press this, that, because that’s just not where I’m at.’ (Randy) Couture he’s a smart guy, he knows what he’s doing, so our plan was to beat Nate. It wasn’t to plan past him, because if you did that, I probably would have gotten my ass whooped, so it was important to beat Nate and after that I guess we could have tried to make it like, ‘ahhh it’s my shot, its my shot, but you never know if you haven’t a scope to do, if you ever have your hand broke. You need a day or two to adjust and that’s why I think they wanted to have a plan before me and Nate.

Elie: Any final words?
Gray: I just want to tell everyone that I appreciate the support, even if you do or not of me, the sport of course, it’s a great sport and it’s going to keep growing and I appreciate it.