View full size"When it didn't happen, that was a hard pill to swallow," former St. Edward wrestling standout Gray Maynard says of failing to claim an NCAA national title while at Michigan State. It remains a motivating factor for his UFC fighting career. "It's still a hard pill to swallow, to know there's a dream out there that you didn't achieve."CLEVELAND, Ohio -- It's 1982, and a determined 3-year-old has traded Oshkosh B'gosh overalls for wrestling tights. He bounds into the training room, clutching his first pair of wrestling shoes, a treasured gift from one of his father's high-school teammates.
Gray Maynard is in Brecksville at his first wrestling camp. It won't be his last. As he grows from toddler to collegian, he'll attend camps all over the country, feeding the drive and honing the skills that will make him a high-school champion in two states and earn him All-America honors in college.
He hasn't yet choked on the bitter knowledge that his greatest ambitions -- to be an NCAA champion and to wrestle for the United States in the Olympics -- will never happen. He doesn't yet know that that those failures -- if that's what they are -- will lay the foundation for a career.
Opening that door, walking into that Brecksville gym was the first step on Maynard's collision course with one of the best MMA fighters in the world: lightweight champion Frankie Edgar. And that fight, to be held Oct. 8 in Houston as part of UFC 136, is his chance at something even more elusive:
Redemption.
"This is it"
Las Vegas -- Randy Couture's Xtreme Gym, set back in the gleaming sandstone and glass of industrial western Las Vegas, smells of sweat and work, of old boxing-glove leather and canvas and industrial-strength disinfectant.
The sound system blares the music of Adam Lambert -- Really? Adam Lambert? -- as the eye shadow-sporting "American Idol" alum's video flashes on giant plasma screens. The place has that open-ceiling warehouse look, with silver insulation jammed between steel girders that sport the unit flags of the First Cavalry, the 101st Airborne, the 57th Infantry and the POW-MIA banner. And, of course, the Stars and Stripes.
This building reeks of dreams.
The gym owned by the mixed martial arts legend is divided into equal halves, but one side is more equal than the other. Students and accountants and casino workers toil on one side. The other side, the Orwellian side, is the domain of the pros.
In the center of the octagon toils Gray Maynard, a short but powerful man who long ago outgrew those 3-year-old's wrestling shoes.
Opponent after opponent rolls into the cage like transmissions on an assembly line. Each fighter has been chosen because he has a skill that mirrors one of Edgar, the UFC lightweight champion. One fighter is quick with his hands. One has outstanding jiu-jitsu skills. One, the shortest of the bunch, was a bronze-medal wrestler in the 1996 Olympics, and moves with the speed and agility that suits his Spider-Man shirt.
They are there to train Maynard to battle Edgar. For a third time.
On April 2, 2008, Maynard -- a 1998 state champion wrestler at St. Edward High School -- beat Edgar at UFC Fight Night, before Edgar became champion.
This year, at UFC 125 on New Year's Day, they fought to a draw in a five-round battle in Las Vegas. The contest was so epic that UFC President Dana White ruled that the two would meet for a third time, rather than, as originally planned, have Anthony Pettis fight the winner.
They were scheduled to headline UFC 130 on May 28 in Las Vegas, but both suffered injuries: Edgar had bulging discs that led to his ribs popping out of joint; Maynard had a cut above his right eye, and knee and elbow injuries that required minor surgery in California.
Now, the fight is set for this fall.
"This is it for Gray Maynard," said White. "Literally everything he's worked for, everything he's ever wanted in his whole life goes into this next fight."
Born to fight
Maynard, 32, is not a complex man. But he is driven. Sitting at his dinner table in Las Vegas, shortly after scarfing down a plateful of spicy pasta prepared by Jess Wheeler, his girlfriend of 11 years, the reason for his resolve becomes clear. And it's a reason even he may not realize.
From the time he was 12, Maynard dreamt of becoming an NCAA champion. Not once. Not twice. Three or four times. He did earn All-America honors at Michigan State three times, but each year, came up just shy of an NCAA crown.
"When it didn't happen, that was a hard pill to swallow," he said. "It's still a hard pill to swallow, to know there's a dream out there that you didn't achieve."
Two dreams, really. When he finished at Michigan State in 2003, Maynard went to Arizona to train with Luke Richesson, now the strength and conditioning coach of the NFL's Jacksonville Jaguars. The goal was the 2004 Olympics.
"That didn't work out," is all Maynard will say.
It wasn't an injury or a loss that cost him that dream. It was something much more mundane, something more painful because of its everyday-life twist: His Olympic weight class was eliminated. What he'd pursued his entire life was gone in an instant, and he'd had no say in the matter.
Dejected, Gray returned to Las Vegas, resigned to getting a job in the real world. In Maynard's case, it was land acquisition at a time when the Vegas market was booming. Maynard was good at it, and his paychecks for one deal often were in the six-figure range.
For some, providing a nice home and a comfortable lifestyle for you and your college sweetheart is enough. Gray Maynard is not content with "for some." Depressed and unfulfilled, his weight rose to almost 200 pounds, nearly 50 above his college wrestling days.
Then, fate presented a chance for a rematch for a man who hates losing more than anything. One of Maynard's Arizona contacts remembered his prowess as a collegiate wrestler and called on him to be a sparring partner for UFC great B.J. Penn. In 2004, Penn was preparing to fight Rodrigo Gracie in Rumble on the Rock 6 in his native Hawaii. It was like feeding a starving man filet mignon. A different, happier Gray Maynard came back to Vegas, knowing what he had to do.
He ditched the real-estate job to do what Jess said he was born to do. He teamed with Couture, a three-time title-holder in mixed martial arts, and in 2007 won a spot in Season 5 of the UFC's hit reality show, "The Ultimate Fighter." His coach? The sparring partner who was his inroad to mixed martial arts: B.J. Penn.
Maynard lost to Nate Diaz in the TUF semifinals there. He has neither lost nor looked back since.
Driven from the start
Gray “The Bully” Maynard
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Maynard's girlfriend may have a degree in psychology from MSU, but she's right about his biological bent towards wrestling.
Jan Maynard, Gray's father and best friend, grew up in Cleveland as one of nine siblings and was a two-time state champion at Cleveland's old South High School. He took home the crown for 103 pounds in 1962 and 112 a year later.
After injuries cut short his wrestling career at Arizona State, Jan went into the restaurant and nightclub business. It's a profession that requires a lot of moving. The family spent time in Arizona, Ohio, Tennessee and finally settled in Las Vegas.
Gray was a good athlete in just about any sport he tried, but decided to focus on wrestling when he was a high school sophomore. A love for the physical demands of the sport and its "you beat me or I'll beat you" mentality meant there really was no other choice.
But the competition in Nevada wasn't up to the standards Gray had set for himself, so he looked for another school. Maynard visited several, but in reality, there was only one choice -- St. Edward. It wasn't his dad's alma mater, but it was in the town where his father made a name for himself. Having relatives there might ease the blow of living so far from home, too.
But it was St. Ed's wrestling pedigree -- 12 state team titles by 1996, when he made the decision -- that was the determining factor.
It wasn't a case of Jan and Linda Maynard being indulgent and catering to a spoiled child. Nor was it a father's use of his son to fulfill his own dreams. They knew that Gray had a gift for wrestling, and Jan was never the kind of father who would kill his son's desire by pushing him too hard.
In the end, Gray and his parents struck a deal: If he wanted to go to St. Ed for his junior and senior years -- 1997 and 1998 -- he had to do two things as a 10th-grader in Vegas: maintain a high grade-point average and win a state title.
"I'll be damned if he didn't do all the things we set out for him," said his father with a laugh.
Being away from home is difficult at that age, and it probably wasn't any easier on a kid who battled a slight stuttering problem. But Maynard's willingness to persevere and rise above those hurdles was an example of just how much he wanted to be the best.
St. Ed wrestling coach Greg Urbas remembers Maynard as a tough, strong kid whose aggressiveness on the mat was his strongest asset. Few arrived for practice earlier or stayed later, and none worked harder. At St. Edward, Gray finished second in the state in 1997 as he battled through loneliness and adjusted to life in a school that requires ties and stricter regimen than that found in Las Vegas schools. But St. Ed was the foundation upon which Maynard has built his career.
"I had some of my toughest workouts at that school," Maynard recalled. "Coach Urbas? He doesn't try to do a speech, but it would end up turning into inspirational speeches before practice. He knew how to light that fire under your butt. And Hef [assistant coach John Heffernan], he was my idol. I wanted to try to impress him every day."
In 1998, his senior season, Maynard went undefeated. He was never even taken to the mat, and was a state champion and national wrestler of the year. That was a forerunner of the success he's had in whatever he's undertaken.
"I think the biggest thing that attracted me to him," said his girlfriend, Wheeler, "is something that I'd never encountered with other people. He always knew what he wanted, and no matter what, he'll get it. There's no doubt.
"We used to fight when we were in college, and we would get into arguments, and he would always put things so introspectively, so differently than how anyone else would think of stuff, and make it really logical and realistic.
"I hated it," she said, laughing. "I had never had anybody talk to me like that before and put it in touch with reality. I had never met anyone who had the heart and the dedication and the passion and the drive and the will to no matter what, accomplish his goal."
Lessons learned
These days, Maynard puts in the physical work: He trains four or more hours a day, seven days a week; and follows a strict diet that is high in vegetable content, omits dairy products and limits his red meat intake to organic beef.
But don't tell Maynard he has a great work ethic. What he has is a fear of not achieving another dream.
"I work hard because if I don't, there's a loss right around the corner, and that's humbling, thinking that another man can beat you up," Maynard said.
Maynard is something special because work ethic isn't limited to the what he does in the octagon. He's one of the UFC's better students of striking, which has helped turn an All-America wrestler into a contender in a sport where fists are just as critical as takedowns and escapes.
When he first came to the sport, his aggression worked against him. Wrestlers go after their opponents, drive into them. Maynard tried to do the same thing, slinging haymakers while windmilling into rivals like a drunk on Saturday night. That's a waste of energy and rarely effective. Now when he attacks, he picks his moments, sometimes letting his opponent come to him. The counterpunch can be the most effective blow in fighting, as greats from Muhammad Ali to Sugar Ray Leonard knew ... and Maynard has learned.
At his home that night, Maynard pulled out a collection of boxing DVDs. He and Jess digest them the way kids suck up Harry Potter movies. Only Maynard is studying, learning, soaking in style and technique as if by osmosis.
Maynard does all this because he doesn't want to be the biggest fish in a small pond; he wants to be the biggest shark in the entire ocean. The next step in that evolution is beating Edgar.
In the first round of their UFC 125 draw on New Year's Day, Maynard erupted, putting the champion down three times. Many said the fight should've been stopped there. Maynard didn't press the fight in the second round, which allowed Edgar to regain his legs and battle back.
"It wasn't that I got tired," Maynard said. "I had that adrenaline dump. All your hopes and goals and everything you could ever hope for, that you trained for, is right there. It's happening, you know? And you see it.
"And then it doesn't. It hits you and you're drained," he said. "Afterwards, you're like, 'What happened?' You feel lazy. Your arms feel heavy. Your legs feel heavy, and that's how I felt after the first round.
"You learn from it," he said. "Now I know."
Gil Martinez, Maynard's striking coach and one of his key corner people during UFC fights, has seen it all in more than a quarter century as a boxer and coach. Martinez insists the draw will work in Maynard's favor when the two fight again. Because it was a title fight -- Maynard's first -- it was a five-round bout. Previously, he'd fought only the three five-minute rounds of an undercard fight.
"This was a big lesson for Gray," said Martinez. "It was his first five-rounder. Now that he's been through that, he's going to remember. He knows he can push the pace more."
Eyes on the prize
Those are the lessons that occupy Maynard's mind, whether he's in the gym or at home sitting at his dark wooden kitchen table, obsessed with proving to himself and others that his non-title win over Edgar was no fluke.
Through the screen door of his home, you can hear crickets chirping in the dry darkness of the Nevada night. But Maynard is so focused on the goal that he's oblivious to the beauty around him. His conversation, measured and nearly devoid of the stammer he's fought all his life, is resolute, purposeful and empty of arrogance.
Jess' and Gray's words to each other are those of people comfortable with each other and themselves. Theirs is not a house, it's a sanctuary, its earth-tone walls and sandstone exterior melding into the desert surroundings, unblemished by a blade of grass or any other green thing.
The stainless-steel stove and refrigerator and the scarred granite countertops bear testimony to heavy use by the youngest old couple in the neighborhood, thirtysomethings who start yawning at 9:30 p.m. No cables run to the widescreen television affixed high on the living room wall, overlooking a sectional and a sheet-covered massage table. Viewing is limited to those fight DVDs and Netflix movies.
The TV is an afterthought to the spartan d cor. The walls bear no posters, the shelves no trophies. The accumulations of his career in wrestling and MMA are in storage or at his parents' home. Only Maynard's training schedule book -- a looseleaf binder replete with diet, critiques and handwritten motivational snippets -- hints at his job.
If the house is his refuge, the gym and the octagon are his office.
Dana White, the UFC president, believes fighting is the sport that defines Man. In the heat of Couture's gym, hearing, seeing and feeling the blows echo through the air, drinking in the aroma of sweat, work and disinfectant, it seems ludicrous to challenge White's claim.
For when you win a bout, you don't just conquer an opponent. You beat defeat.
And that -- not taking Frankie Edgar's title -- ultimately is what Gray Maynard has been pursuing since he was that 3-year-old clutching his first pair of wrestling shoes.