UFC Fight Night ‘Maia vs. LaFlare’ Notebook: Lost Time

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Prizefighters have a shelf life, and Demian Maia undoubtedly feels the tug of Father Time.

The 37-year-old Brazilian will return to the cage for the first time in almost a year when he meets former Ring of Combat champion Ryan LaFlare in the UFC Fight Night “Maia vs. LaFlare” main event on Saturday at Maracanazinho Gymnasium in Rio de Janeiro. Injuries and illness have kept Maia sidelined since he took a unanimous decision from Alexander Yakovlev in May.

“I had a little injury in my shoulder,” Maia told Sherdog.com, “and we [treated it] with a shot of anti-inflammatory [meds]; and then, maybe because of the shot, after that I went to training and there was bacteria inside the bone.”

Persistent issues with the shoulder forced him to withdraw from a scheduled showdown with Mike Pyle in August and led to multiple hospital stays.

“I started to get fever again,” Maia said. “The infection got worse, and we came back to the hospital and stayed a few more days; and then I left to [go to] my house to receive home care. The nurse was coming every day to put antibiotics in my veins. It was good for a while, and then after like three weeks, I had another fever and we came back to the hospital.

“That last one was the worst one because we didn’t know what was happening,” he added. “It wasn’t the infection anymore. It took like three days. Those three days were really scary because they didn’t know what was happening. They tried to do a lot of tests to see if I had any tumors or anything like that. Thank God it was nothing bad.”

Instead, Maia was diagnosed with a common virus. He recovered, returned to training and ultimately drew LaFlare in a co-headlining slot. They were promoted to the main event when an ankle injury forced Raphael Assuncao from a rematch with Urijah Faber. The unbeaten LaFlare has won all four of his fights, all by decision, since arriving in the UFC in April 2013. Maia appears to have his hands full.

“I’m feeling pretty well with my training camp,” he said. “My shoulder is 100 percent, so I hope to do the best fight that I can, the best fight of my life.”

GUT CHECK

Some losses sting worse than others.

Amanda Nunes finds herself on the rebound after just such a loss, as she takes aim at the well-traveled Shayna Baszler in a women’s bantamweight showcase. The American Top Team rep last appeared at UFC 178 in September, when she succumbed to third-round elbows and punches from Cat Zingano at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. Nunes nearly finished the No. 1 contender in the first round, where, per FightMetric figures, she bested Zingano 21-3 in the significant-strike department. It was not enough, and the resilient Coloradan later turned the tide on her way to a stoppage.

With Zingano in her rearview mirror, Nunes turns her attention to Baszler, a 34-year-old Josh Barnett protégé who has lost three of her past four bouts.

“I have a lot of respect for Shayna,” Nunes said in a pre-fight interview with UFC.com. “She’s a very dangerous fighter and a pioneer of women’s MMA. I’m very excited to get back on track with a big win in Rio.”

THIS & THAT

UFC Fight Night “Maia vs. LaFlare” will be the 312th event the Ultimate Fighting Championship has staged in its history ... Former Jungle Fight titleholder Erick Silva has racked up six post-fight performance bonuses totaling $310,000 in nine Octagon appearances ... “The Ultimate Fighter: Brazil” Season 2 winner Leonardo Santos is a seven-time Brazilian jiu-jitsu world champion ... Undefeated Blackzilians prospect Gilbert Burns sports eight first-round finishes among his nine career victories ... Godofredo Castro has never fought outside of his native Brazil ... The seven men who have defeated Akbarh Arreola -- Tiago dos Santos e Silva, Juan Manuel Puig, Ronys Torres, Brent Weedman, Toby Imada, Mac Danzig and Ricardo Corrales -- have 132 wins between them ... Spawned by the famed Chute Boxe camp, Leandro Silva has executed 10 submissions as a professional: six by rear-naked choke, two by arm-triangle choke and one each by guillotine choke and armbar ... Leandro Mafra Teixeira owns a perfect 11-0 record outside the UFC ... Katsunori Kikuno is one of seven fighters to have held the Deep lightweight championship. Dokonjonosuke Mishima, Nobuhiro Obiya, Kazunori Yokota, Tae Hyun Bang, Mizuto Hirota, Daisuke Nakamura and Satoru Kitaoka are the others ... Freddy Serrano, 35, represented Colombia in freestyle wrestling at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing ... Christos Giagos has held titles inside the Resurrection Fighting Alliance and Tachi Palace Fights organizations.

INSIDE THE VENUE

Maracanazinho Gymnasium originally opened in 1954 at a cost of $30 million. It will serve as the host site for the volleyball competition at the 2016 Summer Olympics.