Andre Petroski explains why he asked for Nick Maximov fight, wants to submit Diaz protégé to steal his hype

Andre Petroski asked for the Nick Maximov fight as he believes it’s a good style matchup for him.

Petroski competed on TUF 29 and beat Micheal Gillmore in his UFC debut. He followed that up with a submission win over Yaozong Hu. After that fight he watched Maximov beat Punahele Soriano and proceeded to ask the UFC for the matchup.

“This fight is happening because this is who I requested, I asked for Maximov and they said yes…,” Petroski said on Just Scrap Radio on BJPENN.com. “I watched him on the Contender Series and I watched him in his last fight against Soriano and I thought ‘man, I’m better than this kid, I know I’m better than this kid.’ He’s undefeated, and the challenge excited me.”

Why Petroski wanted this fight is simple. He believes he is better everywhere than Maximov and he knows he can steal some of his hype given he is a protégé of the Diaz brothers.

“Everything he is good at, I’m better at,” Petroski explained. “He’s the decaf version of me. Everything he does well, I just do better. Look, if he shoots he scores, if I shoot I score, that’s the name of the game. My wrestling is going to be better.”

With Andre Petroski believing he is better everywhere than Nick Maximov, he expects his 100% finish rate to continue with a submission win over the jiu-jitsu ace.

“100 percent finish rate, I’m always looking for the finish until the end, as we can see with my last fight,” Petroski said. “If it’s not a finish, it’s the Fight of the Night. Every time I fight it’s exciting… I love submitting guys, honestly, I just want to win. My goal is to win, have another exciting fight, get a finish and get another new contract.”

Should Petroski do as he says and get the submission win over Maximov, the goal is to get a new contract and hopefully get someone in or near the middleweight ranks.

“Absolutely, I think that puts me in a very good spot to get a new contract and start climbing the rankings,” Petroski concluded.

Do you think Andre Petroski will finish Nick Maximov at UFC Vegas 54?