Demian Maia started out his UFC career as the division’s premier submission artist. However, following a loss to Nate Marquardt, and with the exception of the Dan Miller fight, Maia has been content to keep all of his fights standing. While he looked decent against Mark Munoz standing, he looked shameful most recently against Chris Weidman, and with a loss there, he’s now moving down to welterweight to reinvigorate his career.
Current Demian Maia vs Dong Hyun Kim Odds;
Maia – (+100) @ Bovada.Lv
Kim – (-130) @ Bovada.Lv
Dong Hyun Kim is arguably the best takedown artist in the UFC welterweight division. He scored controlling wins over Amir Sadollah and Nate Diaz to set up a big with Carlos Condit. Despite scoring an early takedown, Condit managed to reverse and get to his feet, where he served Kim with his first (official) loss with a brutal flying knee. In his return bout, Kim showed that he’d been working his standup with an easy win over Sean Pierson. A win over Maia should put him right back into contention, if he isn’t already.
You always have to be weary when someone changes a weight class as you just don’t know if they’re going to impress, or look awful. Regardless, I still feel pretty confident that this fight is easy to call. Despite improvements in his wrestling, I don’t believe Maia has the ability to bring Kim down. Further, despite “improvements” to his striking, I don’t think Maia can win the striking exchanges either. He may be able to land occasional big shots, but I think overall Kim has demonstrated himself to be the cleaner striker, which will be facilitated by his reach advantage.
Further, even if Maia is able to hurt Kim standing, Kim always has the ability to score points by putting Maia on his back. Yes, that’s a dangerous place to be, but Kim has always shown solid posture inside the guard, and should be able to negate anything Maia throws at him.
The Demian Maia vs Dong Hyun Kim betting prediction is that Kim controls Maia standing, ultimately knocking him out late in the fight. I really expect Maia’s striking to let him down here, and Kim has repeatedly shown himself to be a very self-aware fighter with smart gameplanning. I’m loving the current Kim odds at -130, and I’m suggesting a moderate sized bet. Let’s hope I don’t get buried on it!
Demian Maia vs Dong Hyun Kim Betting Odds Conclusion: Kim is a better striker and wrestler and should be able to keep this standing to knock out the sloppy Maia. Looking at the current Demian Maia vs Dong Hyun Kim Odds I have to recommend a bet on Kim at -130 with a moderate (5 Units) sized bet.
