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FORTALEZA, Brazil – Heading into UFC on ESPN+ 2 on the heels of a three-fight skid, Demian Maia tried to put the rough stretch into perspective.

Maia (26-9 MMA, 20-9 UFC) had, after all, dropped those losses to none other than champ Tyron Woodley, former interim champion Colby Covington and title challenger Kamaru Usman – the welterweight division’s top three in both the UFC’s rankings and in the latest USA TODAY Sports/MMAjunkie MMA welterweight rankings.

But that doesn’t mean that wasn’t any pressure heading into Saturday’s meeting with Lyman Good. It just meant that the former two-time title challenger, who ended it in the first-round with a submission, has gotten better at dealing with it.

“I’m a competitor – I hate losing,” Maia said during a press conference at Centro de Formacao Olimpica do Nordeste in Fortaleza, Brazil. “I had never lost three times in a row in my career, it had never happened. And I think that, if I didn’t have the maturity that I have now, how I’d deal with it. If it happened five, six years ago, it would have been very hard. And the maturity helped me deal – not just mine, but my team’s, to deal with this pressure. Because it’s a huge pressure. MMA, for me – and the UFC, it’s the biggest league – is the hardest sport there is.

“It’s very extreme, and the losses are very painful. And you can’t make a wrong move, because the fight might end in a matter of seconds. So there’s no room for error. And do it like I have been doing, in the UFC alone, for 12 years – it’s a huge pressure. And I’ll tell you, this pressure I won’t miss.”

The fact that Maia is already talking about the things that he “won’t miss” about his MMA career has to do with the fact that it might be close to over. At 41, the Brazilian has made no secret of the fact that he has two fights left on his UFC contract and that, while nothing’s set in stone, he might not fight past them.

A big win like Saturday’s gives a nice pep in his step, of course, but Maia’s mindset remains: He wants to complete the bouts and take it from there. For his next one, he welcomes a meeting with Michael Chiesa on Brazilian soil, but that’s about as far as he’ll go when it comes to mapping out his next steps in the cage.

In the meantime, the aforementioned murderer’s row that Maia lost to are figuring some stuff out atop the division. The title will be on the line on March 2, at UFC 235, when champ Woodley (19-3-1 MMA, 9-2-1 UFC) meets Usman (14-1 MMA, 9-0 UFC) in a co-headlining bout.

Asked to pick a favorite to win the title match between his former foes, Maia said there wasn’t a clear one. But the grappling ace did have a big prediction for the title challenger’s future.

“It’s an extremely tough fight to call,” Maia said. “To be coherent with what I’ve said, I believe that Woodley, for all that he’s shown, is a slight favorite. But I have a feeling, I don’t know why – I mean, I do know why, because I fought him. (Usman) is a very well-rounded guy. Aggressive at the right times, but he also knows how to apply the rules. I think Usman will still be champion. I don’t know if it’s now, or within one year, I believe he will be champion some day.”

As we know, the division’s next title fight didn’t come together without any hiccups. Covington was once in possession of the UFC’s interim title and logic indicated that a title-unifier would come along. Things didn’t quite work out that way, though, and Covington was sure to make his thoughts about being leapfrogged by Usman known.

Speaking to MMAjunkie earlier in the week, the ever-diplomatic Maia didn’t want to issue opinions on the situation. Both Covington and Usman “are great fighters and both have great wins,” Maia said, and he simply doesn’t know exactly what’s going on behind the scenes to pass judgment on that.

“Maybe if I talk with them I will know better, but I don’t know what’s going on,” Maia said. “And also Tyron, he wants to fight at some specific times. He always tries to push the best time for him and the other opponents get annoyed. They want to sometimes give a short camp to the guy and Colby didn’t accept. I don’t know how the negotiation was. So it’s hard to say. And it’s a game. Tyron is doing his game and they’re doing their game and we don’t know what is happening behind the scenes.”

Maia speaks from experience there, as he was once in the position of being offered a camp shorter than he would have liked against Woodley. After seven straight wins, Maia had to make a quick turnaround to meet the champ at UFC 214, and lost a clear unanimous decision after an unremarkable five-round affair.

Looking back on it, while he can’t say whether the result would be different, Maia does believe not having enough time to prepare hurt his performance in a fight he’d long been clamoring for.

He still doesn’t regret taking it, though.

“When we were talking to the UFC, they said that ‘That’s your chance, and if you don’t take this chance, we don’t know when you’re going to have another chance,’” Maia said. “In that time I was 39, almost 40. We had a meeting with our team and took like two, three days to discuss that.

“We said, ‘OK, if you don’t take this fight and you don’t have this chance anymore, maybe we’re going to regret it forever.’ So it’s better to go there and do what you can. At least I know what happens in this fight. I think the worst thing would be all my life thinking about that.”

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