On fighting for a title with an injury:
"I would have had to," he said. "It's kind of like, if you're going for the belt, you don't pull out of a fight."
His stance on Pettis:
"I don't keep up with the news that much, and I remember I was doing probably like three or four interviews. Every interviewer, obviously trying to get things going, was like, 'Well Anthony, he says that you don't deserve the title.' I thought, well, if we're giving opinions here, then here's my opinion. ... I think Anthony's a tough kid. He's young. As for who he's gone up against, a couple tough guys, but nobody proven, I guess."
Maynard makes it clear that he's not trash-talking though. The line between honesty and trash-talking is easy to blur these days, and Gray wants it known that he's not that kind of guy:
"You got everybody trying so hard to get out there, and I don't know if it's my attitude, but I don't really give a f--k. ...I'm just me, and that's not me. These guys are acting like, I don't know, you're a gimmick. Do you want to be that or is it you? I don't know. It's a gimmick, I think, and it's not me."
Should Gray adopt a more colorful personality to promote fights? Some think so, but you can be very, very sure that Maynard himself is not one of those people:
"98 percent of the people I talk to are like, 'Man, you got to build this fight up. You got to do this.' If the guy's an a--hole then I'll tell him he's an a--hole. But if he's not, then there's nothing to talk about."
It seems likely that Maynard will still be getting his title shot later on in the year, depending on how long it takes Frankie Edgar to recover from back and rib injuries. Until then, Maynard will undoubtedly keep the honesty flowing. When he feels like it.