Peinado and Demian in Bahia. Photo: personal archive.
One of Alliance’s competition wizards, Brazilian national No-Gi champion Antonio Peinado helped Demian Maia prepare for this coming Saturday’s bout with Kendall Grove at the grand finale of the The Ultimate Fighter reality show’s twelfth season. “It was really cool and a new experience for me. Demian has a professionalism about him that I’ve never witnessed before. He’s very dedicated in training and I feel we did good work on the Jiu-Jitsu side of things. He comes from a Jiu-Jitsu background and he’s stuck with it,” he tells GRACIEMAG.com.
“I can talk about Jiu-Jitsu because that’s what I know. Demian won’t have too much trouble with Kendall on the ground. I feel he has the best ground game in the UFC and I can tell you he’s sharp,” he adds.
Besides Demian, Peinado got to train with another fighter on the UFC roster during his stay in Bahia, Junior Cigano, who is scheduled to challenge Cain Velasquez for the heavyweight belt. Cigano is known for his knockout, but Peinado was surprised by the ground skills wielded by the boxing specialist.
“Cigano is a phenomenon. I heard he’s only been training boxing for five years, so things won’t be much different on the ground. He’s also very professional and very dedicated. He’s a brown belt, and he showed himself to be very skillful when we trained together. Cigani is a dangerous guy, he could even compete,” he says in analysis.
Peinado enjoyed the experience and hopes to get more involved in the MMA world.
“I learned a lot and was impressed with the professionalism of the athletes and coach Luiz Dórea. It made want to fight MMA some day, and it was an experience out of this world. I hope I contributed something to Demian and that he wins by submission,” he says in closing.