Shogun Will Fall: Mauricio Rua’s Days are Numbered

just another machida nuthugger making excuses for why he thinks shogun sucks. first of all shogun came in horrible shape for his first two UFC bouts and thats why he performed the way he did. after he fought machida the first time (which many believe he won) he showed the real shogun. then he KO’s machida end of story, in there rubber match he will do the same to the karate queer. shogun is king of 205 and will be for a looooong time

The person who wrote this article literally knows nothing about Shogun Rua or MMA in general. It is quite obvious that coming back from 2 knee surgeries would hinder any fighter. Since Shogun has been back to his phenomenal conditioning, he has looked fantastic against Chuck Liddell and Machida on two occasions. If Shogun knocks out Evans, he will have the title for some time. Whole article – completely laughable. Just ask Dana White about the real Shogun.

Oliver, i must say that article is empty.

The up and comers – Bayder, Jones etc. have yet to proove themselves against the elite in the division. Shogun is a champion – one of too many in the highly competitive 205, but the one to hold the belt and deservedly. I don’t aggree that Shogun will be defeated by his body! Nor will he fall to any of the past champs or the up and comers – well, not without a serious fight.

Why?

He has come back from injuries time and time again..it’s part of a fighters life and unless something serious happens to prevent him from doing so the evidence says he’ll continue. He beat an in form Machida – An exeptional and intelligent mixed martial artist who will continue to devastate the division – twice! His initial outings in the octagon were brutal but showed a steady incline in performance to where he is now. And the fighters he fought are all talented – Why doubt him? Why waste time writing your article on an unprooven hunch? There is no smoke saying this champs fire is out,and for Gods sake, he has just won it and in spectacular fashion. You think it’s a contoversial topic, but in truth it should’t be a current topic save for those with too much time on their hands……..like us!

Completely agree. Shoguns knees are done.

I beg to differ. When he fought forrest he was coming off of two knee surgeries and wasnt that his first ufc fight? He would demolish forrest if he fought him today. Shogun is the pride grand prix champion and prides rule differences may have caused him the loss to forrest. Im not saying hes not going to be defeated but machida knocked out rashad and rua knocked out machida. Rua is as comfortable as ever in the ufc now. If he defeats rashad, i dont see him losing for a while.

Its really great to have someone come out with such a bold statement like this. I love debates, especially if they involve Shogun! I guess the my rebuttal would start with the fact that anything bold statements made in MMA tend to be eaten by those who made them in the first place. There are so many underlying factors involved with this sport that no predictions are sound because there are so many dualities to any argument you can make about ANY fighter in ANY situation. You can say BJ Penn was sick/unmotivated/not himself for the Edgar fight, you could say Fedor got careless with Werdum OR you could flip the script and say “their washed up, not as good as they once were or once thought to have been”. The reality is we don’t know exactly what is to be known about these fighters until we get a chance to watch their careers unfold. It is what makes this sport so great because it is difficult to truly understand the talent, potential and greatness of an mma athlete until you put everything that they have accomplished into perspective. I think Shogun is an excellent example of this.
From the minute you began your discussion, I knew your idea of Shogun was on the pessimistic/negative perspective of Shogun’s career. Your argument consisted of Shogun getting “completely dismantled” by Forrest, a “pitiful” performance against Coleman, a glass-chin-freebee-fight against Liddell, and finally “confused” and “caught off guard” Machida.
First off, to completely dismantle someone in a fight I would think it be something similar to Fedor vs Goodridge, Penn vs Sanchez, or a great example (and most applicable to this discussion), Shogun vs Rampage. You could very easily add other factors to that fight like: 1) Forrest was the best Forrest we had ever seen at that point (and had to be, considering he was facing the #1 ranked LHW at that time). It was easy to recognize his cardio was stellar, much better than what we saw against Tito. 2) Shogun wasn’t prepared, he just married his wife and believed he was getting a middle-of-the-road fighter to start off his UFC career. My guess was his intentions were to take Forrest down (away from what was thought to be his best asset, standup. A strategy used in his last defeat vs Tito) and try to do the same thing he did against his last opponent, Overeem (his famous ground and pound). But, like you said Forrest came in with a game plan, something Rua had never used in his career. Forrest knew Rua took a long hiatus and could get tired out. He also knew he had to tie up and smother Rua in the guard, (another thing never used or executed well enough vs Shogun) this neutralized Rua’s gnp. I think Rua was unprepared and did get worked by a better fighter that night. But, at the very least an out-of-shape, unprepared Shogun made it a fight, he didn’t get completely dismantled.
Secondly, I don’t want to argue the fact that Shogun gave a disappointing performance. I was livid after saw that fight because I was so excited for his return. But lets look at it in a different way, the positive side. I would love to see anyone come back from more than a years rest from TWO surgeries and put on a better performance than Shogun did against Coleman. Despite the empty gas tank, Shogun still caught Coleman with knees, leg kicks, some big shots, an olma plata, and still finished the fight. This is also the same Coleman who beat Stephan Bonnar a few months later. I think what that fight proved was a talented fighter lacked the gas tank to finish a weathered veteran until the last minute; which shouldn’t be considered pitiful in my opinion.
I agree with you with regards to Chuck Liddell; yes he has a glass chin and I do not believe he deserved a title shot for beating him. But again, lets take this into perspective. When you look at the whole fight, I find, you get a different idea of Rua’s performance. All people see/remember is the diving-forward hook that finished the fight. What about how he managed to take Liddell down (something accomplished wrestlers have extreme difficulty doing), won almost if not all exchanges while standing, had brutal leg kicks and tried for a couple submission attempts. It wasn’t like the fight Liddell had with Evans where Liddell stocked him for an entire round (a round which Evans lost), only to get caught in the second; this was Shogun trying to beat him any/every which way. He sent a message in that fight, regardless of Liddell’s chin, that he was willing to take the fight anywhere. There was no strategy involved, it was just utter domination. And if Evans got a crack at the title for beating Liddell, it seems only fair that Shogun should for a more dominating performance. I would also like to mention that Rampage/Dana bowed out of the Rampage/Machida fight, leaving Shogun the only worthy contender with a couple wins behind him at that time. And he jumped on that opportunity.
With regards to the Machida fights, I think you are way off. Lets not forget these two have sparred with each other before. Before the first fight I think its fair to say that both of them knew what each fighter was bringing to the table. What Shogun did in their first fight was exploit a weakness in Machida that he (but not many others) already knew was there and Machida should have been more prepared for it. And I don’t think either fighter deserved to be criticized for that fight. I thought it was a spectacular display of grit, heart, talent and strategy by two of the best LHW’s at that time (and still, in my opinion). The second fight, similar to the Liddell fight, was just Shogun displaying his talents. If you say that Machida was caught off guard then he must have been caught off guard for the entire round and if that is the case then it would completely discredit Machida as a fighter. No fighter should go into fight expecting not to get punched, even if it rarely happens. Shogun was stocking Machida from start to finish. There was a number of times where Rua attempted those diving in punches (similar to how he knocked out Liddell) and caught Machida with them! And as soon as Machida was put against the Shogun would throw a devastating leg or body kick. Machida wanted no part of the stand up and took Shogun down which didn’t do anything to help. I think if you watch just before the punch Rua threw to knock Machida down you can see that the exchange before Shogun tries the same punch but is a little off with the direction and timing of the punch. This shows either Machida made a brutal mistake or Shogun made an excellent decision to stay in the pocket to get the overhand right. Either way, I think Shogun does deserve more credit then confusing and catching Machida off guard. Tim Sylvia might’ve been caught off guard with Ray Mercer, Houston Alexander might’ve been caught off guard by James Irvin, but Machida was just overwhelmed.
I think Shogun’s should be judged by his career as a whole, which can be best described as unpredictable. No one thought a 23 year old new comer would best the entire Pride Middleweight Division at the 2005 grand prix, but he did. No one thought he would be defeated by Coleman or Griffin, but he did. And no one thought he would defeat a fighter who was thought to be unbeatable, but he did (arguably twice). Shogun at the age of 29 is still a young fighter but a very experienced one at that. The competition is stiff in the LHW division, but regardless of the opponent (even Jon Jones or Anderson Silva) I wouldn’t count out Shogun in any fight down the road.

sorry for all of the typos, I had to write quickly. I meant to say “Shogun’s future should be judged”, the rest I think is readable. Look forward to your feedback!

Congrats TJ, you made some great points WITHOUT cursing the author! Not very MMA-ish… I’m amazed =D

This is the author of the article, I’m having a bit of trouble posting comments for some reason, so excuse the assumed name. Here’s my response so far.
I applaud most of you guys for keeping it civil, and I knew I’d get some controversy when this first started, so I’m not surprised to see it’s garnering a strong reaction.

But no matter what, this is my opinion and I’m sticking to it. Like many other PRIDE veterans, Shogun’s years of hard-fought wars has aged his body prematurely. I can’t see how anyone could say he’s still in great condition when he’s going in for another MAJOR knee surgery. I know injuries happen all the time, but few of them are as life-changing as knee surgeries, and no matter how successful a surgery it is, there’s only so many times you can repair something before it can’t be repaired again.

If you believe the rumors, Shogun is going to be out for almost a year rehabbing his knee. That is not the kind of injury you can just shrug off and say “it happens all the time”. That’s a serious injury that has the potential to seriously hinder a person’s career.
I truly believe that if Shogun’s opponent takes the fight to him with constant takedowns and smart counter-punching (Rashad Evans, anyone?) that Shogun will once again gas out, have no idea what to do, and come out on the losing end.

I’m not taking away anything from Shogun’s accomplishments in PRIDE, but the man is done. No matter what anyone else says, he absolutely will not be the one to break the mold of Light Heavyweight champions losing their titles in their first few fights, no matter how dominating he looked against Machida. Again I use the example of every Light Heavyweight Champion since Liddell looking absolutely beastly in their fights to get to and even win the title, only to lose it within one or two matches and look pretty horrible while losing.

Sorry guys, if that one take down fk’d up shoguns knee so bad that he needed surgery, than
this article has SOME truth, SOME truth i repeat, Sure I believe shogun’s good enough take out Rashad one hit wonder, but jones… idk yet and am not a Machida lover but , if Machida hadn’t let all the smack talk and pressure get to him, he would have repeated the outscoring or he would have knocked Rua out, this article has “some” truth to it.

Rua throws a lot of kicks and that affects his prior injuries when hitting an opponents body
Rua’s days are numbered, he’ll be out not soon, but in time like every fighter, he’s not getting past 32

Oh gosh Tj , where to start with your dissertation

you seemed to make more objective remarks than actual statements.

Here’s a few a few subjective remarks i feel are objective
Machida just lost the mental game thats what happened, he let his pride get in the way and tried to finish Rua and got finished himself.
HE won a decision with all the judges giving the fight to him the first fight.
Because leg kicks do not carry enough weight as clean strikes do in mma fighting score cards
and just because rua throws his arms in the air after taking a punch to the face doesnt’ change he got caught in the face.

Shogun is a lot better than Rashad, Griffin, chuck, and Machida. Shogun quick and strong. Shogun can fight on the ground and stand up. Sometimes he is great sometimes he is not but overall he is amazingly fast but he looks slow on tv.

To: SG
We could argue about what is subjective/objective but that would just be boring and would take away from the discussion; as does any opening comments talking about the sentence structure or grammar of another person’s rebuttal and not sticking to the discussion at hand. The point I was trying to make is that these kind of bold statements people make about mma like “Machida lost the mental game” are just fabricated assumptions that can be so easily discredited in a sport like MMA. How do you know Machida lost the mental game? Did you talk with him in the dressing room afterwards? I don’t remember Shogun trash talking Machida to get him off his game… Are there some underlying factors that you know that no one else knows?

The same can be said about Shogun’s knee surgery… Unless you’re his doctor you have no clue what to predict for Shogun’s career. This is the same stupid logic that was used when Shogun was thought to be “done/washed up” the last time he had knee surgeries. Same as now, there was that idea that once Shogun fought someone good, like Machida, he would have his weaknesses exploited. I would think it would be illogical to predict the same thing now that he has proven himself. And lets not kid ourselves, Shogun has proven himself. Thats fine if you agree with the judges from the first fight, that’s your SUBJECTIVE opinion. But if you want to get into straight facts then look how fight metric system scored the fight (http://www.mmamania.com/2009/10/25/fightmetric-statistics-deconstruct-ufc-104-controversial-decision-for-machida-vs-shogun-pic/). Shogun proved in the first fight that he could fight with the best again, had his cardio back, and (if didn’t then) he could beat Machida the next time.

The second fight I can’t agree with the idea that Machida’s head wasn’t in it, he got caught off guard, or he had a tummy ache, etc. It’s all fabricated bullshit. Your just taking away Machida’s credit, not Shogun’s—Machida is supposed to be a samurai, bred since birth by a fuckin karate master… This guy is the opposite of Hollywood, he lives to fight. The guy spends his time-crackin coconuts, drinkin piss, and meditating under water falls. You cant fuck with that focus—Machida had plenty of time to recover and prepare for the next fight, he said so himself “No excuses”. Even so, from the moment that second fight started you knew Shogun was taking a different approach. He swung for the fences and tried chasing Machida down, along with continuing his leg and body kicks; did you see that jumping body kick Shogun landed? That could’ve easily broken some ribs!

When was it in the fight that you saw Machida trying to finish? The guy got clipped and took some heavy blows to the legs and body and took Shogun down to weather the storm (which would have worked if Machida could’ve down something from the ground, but Rua showed how well he can scramble to get up—something to keep in mind for Shoguns fight with Evans). Besides the knee Machida threw just before he got knocked out, I didn’t see any heavy offense worthy of saying he tried to finish the fight. You could make that argument in the first fight when Machida had Shogun in the Muay-Thai clinch and threw all those knees… maybe you’re getting your fights mixed up.

lol who is this retard who wrote this artice? did you just start watching mma 2 years ago?

Guys – dont take this guy seriously. He knows his article can get alot of attention by drawing outrageous conclussions. This way his boss will say “well done son, your drawing in the crowd”. You honestly think he believes this? Noone is that far out of touch with reality. Come on guys your better than that.

For the sake of controversy, this writer is gay and openly confesses it. Just ask him. He must have a thing for Forrest Griffin.

I’d just like to once again thank those that kept this civil for keeping it civil. We had some interesting debate and I think it’ll be very interesting to see which one of us gets proven wrong. I’m man enough to admit that if my prediction becomes totally baseless, I’ll eat my humble pie with a smile.

Now, to those that feel the need to insult me and the like, all I have to say is: grow up, folks. I’m not a nuthugger, or an idiot, or gay, of faking this to get publicity. This is my opinion, and even though it goes against the grain, I feel strongly enough about it to throw it out their to the masses. I’m willing to defend it as much as I can, but attacking me instead of my opinion unfortunately seems to be the norm.

I agree that Mauricio’s knee is very sensitive. With one takedown and he needs surgery. What if Machida kicked that leg? The fight would be over very quickly. It was inexcusable for Machida. He trained his whole life to avoid punches like this. And when he fell he should use try to get up and not tie up with his waist. He is been there so many times. Also when he got him to the ground he should be more active. Vicious elbows in the head would do it. He landed some but they were not so strong. My point is that Machida looked unfocused for the first time in his MMA career. Actually even in the first matchup with Rua he didn’t look good. Even if he won that fight(3 rounds go clearly to Machida), he didn’t look good. People must understand that champions have some responsibilities and “musts” that Machida never experienced before. Everyone knows your name and that’s very distracting. I believe that if Machida recovers and wins again the belt he will be more ready because he knows how to deal with a champion’s life.

So if Machida becomes more active and vicious in his strike he can beat Rua easily.

It’s an interesting insights on Rua. I believe that pressure got Machida a trouble that is due to mindless talking of MMA persons u know who I mean. But codos to Rua his a talented fighter but still I believe in Machida. Machida is a very unique fighter in my opinion.

Look just accept that each time these two fight, decision could go either way… and unfort for Machida, this time he got caught good! With LHW, theres quite a few fast strikers with lots of power behind the punch/kick, so every now n then if you get caught, youre gonna be quite stunned… I think with Shogun, its all about recovering fully, as clearly when hes near 100% health, the guy is very tough to beat! Agree tho that knee problems after multiple surgeries, will not go away, however, if you give them enough time to recover then Shogun will be classic old Shogun… guess might mean now though that if Shogun can defend his title it will be longer periods between each fight for him.

Also, I think Machida would comeback no problems from the loss, he just needs to adjust against Shogun’s leg/body kicks, any other fight I think Machida will still be competitive if not dominant again…