Ultimate Blogger Maynard: Still hurts

Fight week is here and I am in Houston for the UFC 136 main event rematch with Frankie Edgar. I had to watch the second fight again for the UFC Countdown show. It just made me even angrier that I didn’t get the belt.

Edgar came out, moving all over the place, and I knocked him down once, twice, three and four times in the first round.

I was thinking, “This is it! I’m done! I’ve achieved my goal!” The guy was stumbling over even when I didn’t hit him.

A lot of people have been talking about the scoring of the first round of the January fight. My thinking is it was 10-7. It should have been scored 10-7 in my favour for sure.

We’ve seen a lot of 10-8 rounds. There’s a knockdown or a couple of big takedowns and the other guy doing nothing and it is a 10-8. I knocked him down four times and beat him all over the Octagon. If it wasn’t a 10-7 round, then there’s no such thing as a 10-7 round.

I gave him the second round — he did a great job of getting back into the fight. He’s very tough. But I needed that round to recover from the adrenaline dump of coming that close to winning the title in a first-round KO. I put a lot of energy into that first five minutes.

In the third round, I picked it back up. I caught him with hooks, jabs, everything. There’s nothing on his shots, he’s good and fast with his kicks, but he doesn’t commit to his leg kicks with me because he’s worried about the takedowns.

He was playing for points. I was fighting. I took it to him while he was trying to touch me and then back off.

In the fourth, he came out strong. That was his round. His best round of the fight probably. So going into the last round I had a 10-7, or a 10-8 at worst, plus I had won the third.

In the fifth he didn’t feel like he wanted to engage at all, until the last few seconds. I chased and chased him all over. I took the last round on aggression. There’s no way he won that round, there’s no way he won that fight.

Then came the BS decision. A draw? Really? To walk back to the dressing room knowing a guy I had beaten, and a guy I had beaten again, was the UFC champion hurt. It still hurts. It will hurt right up until Saturday night.

That gold strap is mine. I’ve heard that Edgar wants to be done with me. I felt like that for about a day after the last fight, then my mindset was that I will fight him 1,000 times until he and the world realizes I am the better man.

Frankie Edgar and me have spent 40 minutes in the ring, but I’ll spend 40,000 more until I get my due.

I am craving this fight, I am not sick of fighting him at all. Why would I be? I’ve won both the last two fights.

I’m coming into fight week with a lot of hate. Not a hatred towards Edgar. He’s a good guy and a very tough fighter. It is more a hatred towards the fact that I had that belt in my hand and yet I wasn’t allowed to walk out of the Octagon with it. It’s anger at the fact he’s been world champion since January 1, when I won the fight.

That’s my mindset going into UFC 136. I am going to make sure I get my hand raised.

Follow me on Twitter @GrayMaynard

Gray Maynard takes on Frankie Edgar at UFC 136 on Saturday, Oct. 8 in Houston. He is blogging exclusively for sportsnet.ca on a weekly basis ahead of his fight.

UFC 136 will be shown live on pay-per-view at 6 p.m. PT / 9 p.m. ET. Watch live preliminary fights on Sportsnet starting at 5 p.m. PT / 8 p.m. ET.