I believe a massive intangible which may very well decide the fight, will be Maia's conditioning.
He was never known to have a tremendous gas tank by any stretch, even at MW and with the weightcut, against a cardiocrusher in Fitch, I think will be a deciding factor and the greatest test for Maia at WW. We haven't really seen him pushed past the first round at WW against Stungun or Story and Fitch is the epitome of a "grinder".
This is one of those 51/49 matches for me, but I'll lean everso slightly towards the guy who can maintain top control with great cardio and submission defense in Fitch, despite personally pulling for my BJJ guy in Maia.
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MY MMA RANKINGS
HW Velasquez Cigano Werdum Cormier Bigfoot Barnett Mir Browne Nelson
LHW Jones Machida Evans Hendo Davis Goose Teixeira Shogun Mousasi Bader
MW ASilva Belfort Weidman Jacare Okami Rockhold Kennedy Consta Bisping Boetsch
WW GSP Hendricks Condit MacDonald Diaz Maia Fitch Kampmann Ellenberger Pyle
LW Bendo Alvarez Maynard Melendez Thomson J.Miller Diaz Pettis Chandler Grant dos Anjos
FW Aldo Mendes Curran Lamas Frankie Zombie Cub Lentz Kawajiri Siver
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