By Gray Maynard · November 19, 2009 · 3:38 PM

Hello Las Vegas. My name is Gray Maynard, I currently compete in the UFC lightweight division and I am also a Las Vegas resident.

I moved here in the 6th grade and attended Booker Elementary, Garside Junior High, Bonanza High School and Durango High School. I ended up finishing my last two years of high school at an all boys’ catholic school in Ohio.

Courtesy of UFC

Gray Maynard throws a left hand in his bout with Jim Miller at UFC 96. Maynard defeated Roger Huerta at UFC Fight Night 19 today in Oklahoma City, Okla.

I chose to wrestle for Michigan State University, where I became a three-time Division-1 All-American. In 2003 after I graduated college, I moved to Arizona briefly in attempt to make the 2004 Olympic wrestling team, but as life has it, my goals changed and I moved back home to Las Vegas.

I started wrestling when I was 3 years old and that was the main reason for moving around the country. I was in always pursuit of my goals in the sport of wrestling. Returning to Vegas in 2005 was the end of my wrestling career and the beginning of my mixed martial arts career.

When you get past the bright lights and fun times of Las Vegas you’ll find numerous MMA gyms filled with coaches, amateur and pro athletes, regular people just trying to get a workout and even people that don’t fit in any of those categories. The combination of all those personalities under one roof makes for some interesting moments.

Hopefully some of those moments will happen while I’m writing these blogs, for your entertainment of course!!

I started my preparations or “training camp” as we call it in my profession, for my upcoming fight Jan. 11. This is about the time I usually become a hermit and the only bright lights I see of Vegas are of my house and the gym. I weigh 178 lbs right now, in my eight weeks of hard training I need to drop about 23-25 lbs to make weight for my fight. This is where all the fun starts!!

With the WEC and UFC coming up this week, I have a few teammates in their last days before the fight. Sundays I usually have the day off, but LC Davis gave me a call to help him with a workout for his upcoming fight on Wednesday in the WEC. He lives in Iowa, but came out to here to train with us at Xtreme Couture for his training camp.

I headed down to Palms Hotel to one of the meeting rooms that’s set up for the fighters to workout in. They always have two workout rooms so they can split up the fighters. We worked out for about an hour and went over his game plan for the fight. At this point there’s not much to do except keep your skills sharp and lose weight. He still had 10-12 lbs to lose until weigh-ins on Tuesday.

My other teammate competing this week in the UFC is Forrest Griffin. He came in to practice on Monday to get a workout. He was in good spirits and seemed like he was going to be ready for his fight!! His last fight was a tough loss to Anderson Silva. In this sport there are so many variables that can happen before and during your fight that are out of your control.

After a loss it’s hard to pick yourself up, dust off and get back to work. But, that’s exactly what Forrest has done and that’s why so many people and myself respect him so much. He’s got a blue-collar mentality, the attitude that says hard work solves everything. I don’t pick fights, but I’m going to say Forrest is going to win this one!! Especially since Tito is coming off a long layoff.

Justin M. Bowen

Jose Aldo (right) and Mike Brown fight for the World Featherweight Championship Wednesday at the Palms. Aldo won with stoppage in the second round.

Wednesday was the WEC fights, so of course I was right there watching it live!! The WEC only has lighter weight classes, it’s also owned by the same company as the UFC. I love watching all the lighter-weight fight in MMA, boxing, wrestling or any combat sport!! They always have good technique, great cardio, and usually turn out to be really good battles. My boy LC Davis won, he went up against an undefeated fighter out of Brazil. He looked great, definitely keep an eye on him!!

There are many reasons to watch the WEC, but there’s a big reason to watch it now, and his name is JOSE ALDO — the new 145 lbs WEC World Champion!! This kid is legit!! He’s an exciting, explosive and technical fighter out of Brazil. The best part is he’s only 23-years-old.

I think he’s going to hold the belt for a long time. But with all the other good fighters in his weight class, who knows. But that’s why the “fight game” is so fun to follow. I’m definitely an Aldo fan now!!

Thanks for reading Las Vegas!! It’s a great town and I’m glad to be a part of it. Feel free to say hi if you ever see me around town, I’d love to meet you. And check back every other week to follow my blog and keep up with what I've been doing.