http://mmajunkie.com/news/29217/afte...fc-on-fx-4.mma
Clay Guida's trademark locks won't be swinging as wildly next Friday when he meets Gray Maynard in Atlantic City.
In fact, Guida (29-12 MMA, 9-6 UFC) will braid back his shoulder-length curls for the fight – after Maynard (10-1-1 MMA, 8-1-1 UFC) filed a complaint with the New Jersey State Athletic Control Board.
John Fosco, Guida's manager and president of VFD Sports, on Friday told
MMAjunkie.com (
www.mmajunkie.com) that Maynard filed the request with the commission roughly a month ago – and that his client has decided to comply, which the New Jersey commission confirmed with MMAjunkie.com.
"Clay chose to avoid any distractions and simply complied," Fosco told MMAjunkie.com. "Clay will be braiding his hair back. Clay is not focused on this and has one objective: winning. Nothing will distract him from his goal."
Under the Unified Rules of MMA, individual commissions are allowed to rule on "whether head or facial hair presents any hazard to the safety of the unarmed combatant or his opponent or will interfere with the supervision and conduct of the contest or exhibition."
And in such instances the ruling body believes there is a hazard, "the unarmed combatant may not compete in the contest or exhibition unless the circumstances creating the hazard or potential interference are corrected to the satisfaction of the Commission."
In the case of Maynard and Guida, Nick Lembo, counsel for the NJSACB, said a hearing was avoided when Guida agreed to Maynard's request.
"He doesn't want to do it, and I don't believe he's 100 percent happy about it, but he's being very understanding and very cooperative about it and he agreed to it," Lembo told MMAjunkie.com. "Otherwise, if he said, 'No, I'm not going to do that,' we'd have to have a hearing on it and let both sides present their case and have a commissioner's ruling on the issue."
Lembo said if the NJSACB believes a fighter's hair to be "absolutely out of control," it typically will ask his opponent's camp if he has any problems. But he said Maynard's side filed its complaint in writing before the commission had even gotten to that point.
Lembo said the nature of Maynard's complaint was that Guida's hair "could pose a distraction to their fighter … and that they thought it gave an unfair advantage to their opponent."