Clay Guida Expects ‘Five Rounds of Fun’ Against Gray Maynard

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Coming off a back-and-forth, highly entertaining loss to Ben Henderson in November, Clay Guida knew what he wanted.

“We asked for a main event,” Guida told the Sherdog Radio Network’s “Beatdown” show. “We asked for five rounds and we knew it was going to be tough, being that I was coming off a loss to Ben Henderson, the eventual champion, and then Gray [Maynard] was coming off a tough loss to Frankie Edgar, the champ at the time. It was a shot in the dark, and luckily the UFC, Dana White and Joe Silva, put it together. Five rounds of fun, it’s coming up.”

The matchup is set to headline UFC on FX 4, which is scheduled for June 22 in Atlantic City, N.J. Guida expects a barnburner.

“He’s a very, very good wrestler with very good boxing,” Guida said. “We’re going to test his chin. I know he’s going to be trying to test mine too. He throws very big punches. He also throws very good combinations and has crisp boxing.”

Maynard had won eight straight prior to his two meetings last year with Edgar. The first ended as a split draw, and in the second he suffered a heartbreaking knockout loss. In both encounters, he came about as close as you can to becoming a UFC champion.

The way Guida sees it, beating a fighter like Maynard could earn him a title shot.

“If I go out there and beat the brakes off of him and really put it on him, I think the UFC is going to have a hard time denying us,” Guida said. “I know Nate Diaz is right up there. Yeah, he won three in a row, but look, Gray won six or seven in a row. He hadn’t lost for how many years? … [And] I went on a decent little run there. I won four over a couple of tough guys, former world champs, [Takanori] Gomi in Pride and [Anthony] Pettis in the WEC, and I lost a very, very close fight to Ben Henderson. So it’s one of those, it all depends on the way of victory.”

Regardless of how the fight finishes and the repercussions that follow, Guida is confident fans will see an entertaining bout June 22.

“Anytime Gray or I step in the cage,” he said, “there’s a potential Fight of the Night or Fight of the Year.”

Listen to the full interview (beginning at 45:30).