The Shogun/Machida debate

[Ryan Hoegner]

For those of you who watched the fight, who won?

Shogun, IMO. Pushed the pace, did more damage and looked to have landed the most strikes.

They need an immediate re-match.

Ryan

[Scott Moore]

As much I would like to say Machida won I've got to admit from what I saw Rua put on a more dominant performance and probably should've gotten the deicision. But this is why you shouldn't leave fights up to the judges, Rua should've pushed the pace a bit more, especially towards the end.

Dana's already talked about the rematch and both fighters have agreed to it so I'm sure we'll see it very soon.

On the plus side it was nice to see Rua in really good shape he looked like he did in his Pride days.

If they do rematch I'd still bet on Machida, though. This is just going to make him work harder to prove himself.

[Scott Stevens]

Originally Posted by Ryan Hoegner

Shogun, IMO. Pushed the pace, did more damage and looked to have landed the most strikes.

I agree with this. Seemed pretty clear to me.

[Jeffrey Crawford]

Shogun won that fight; this was worse then bisping/hamill. Again, it falls back on the lack of a good scoring system that properly reflects all that MMA offers. I also think that shogun exposed the best way to beat Machida. Chop the legs and time the rush. Shogun rushed when Lyoto rushed and in essence did the same thing Lyoto made a living off of, Interrupting timing. Shogun looked great and hopefully he gets some big fights in the future.

[Jeffrey Crawford]

Here is the link to the fight metrics. Link is WFS, chart of strikes landed

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8sapMW_W6o...machidarua.png

Clear who landed more.

[Chris Valine]

In order to be the champion you have to beat the champion. Shogun did not "hands down" beat Machida. Simple as that. Shogun did not inflict enough damage for the judges to justify giving him the win. Half the techniques that Shogun threw were blocked by Machida anyways and did not cause enough damage. I will agree that it was not the most exciting fight but a strategic win for Machida.

[Stephen Flamm]

Interesting fight - despite being a unanimous decision, the judges were split on who actually won the first and third rounds. Search around for scoring from the guys at Sherdog, and some of them have other rounds going different ways.

I thought Rua won easily, but I only watched it on tv. If those ringside cannot agree on who won several rounds, it's hard for me to disagree with the decision. A rematch would have been justified regardless of the decision, so I am pleased to hear that White and both fighters are eager to make it happen.

[Oliver Gould]

Joe Rogan's commentary was absolutely horrible and it's stoking the fires of the controversy. Watch the fight with no sound - it paints a different picture. The problem is you can't hear shots connect, but it's almost impossible not to be influenced by Rogan's jabbering with the commentary on (even when you make a commitment to ignore it). I still think Shogun won btw, but it's possible to see how a judge might score it for Machida.

/rant I hate Joe Rogan as a commentator. This fight was the worst, but I'm sick of his selective, hype-based commentary. At one point Machida backed Rua into the cage and connected with several shots. Rua threw an arm punch at the end of the exchange and Rogan immediately bellowed "big right hand from Shogun!" I lost count of the number of times Rogan jumped in with "big leg kick!" on checked kicks as well. Ah well... /rant

[Jeffrey Crawford]

^
I actually agree with you about rogan in this fight, Usually i don't mind him but in this fight he was overwhelming me and ruining the fight for me. However, Shogun did win this fight in my opinion, it's all good though rematch soon.

[Rafe Kelley]

I am one of the few I guess who say it for Machida. It could have been called 48-47 one way or the other and I think it would have been fair.

It comes down to three issues.

How do you score the advantage of leg kicks shogun had over Machida's advantage in meaningfull hand strikes.

How limited was Machida by the damage from the leg kicks, how much damage did the couple times machida rocked shogun do.

How do you judge the many many exchanges were one fighter landed at the same time the other fighter landed a counter.

The first 3 rounds were the best technical fight I have seen in MMA, both guys need better Cardio especially machida. I have never seen so many perfectly timed counters so many crisp exchanges such strategic fight.

This was how I saw it

Round 1 Machida 10-9
Due to advantage in the couple meaningfull exchanges
Round 2 10-10
Shogun better leg kicks
Machida better upper body strikes
Round 3 10-9 Machida rocked Shogun had couple exchanges with clear advantage
Round four 10-10
Shogun seemed to have advantage but slowed down machida landed a couple meaningfull shots
Round 5 Shogun 10-9
Machida looked tired hesitant Shogun moving forward landing consistently but not enough to put the fight away.


I think Shogun came in with the right skill set and game plan to take Machida down leg kicks, leg kicks leg kicks, Machida doesn't want to fight that war. However he wasn't able to take capitalize on that leg kick advantage to get off in any other element of the game he never started landing really meanginfull hand strikes never got a good clinch and failed to take machida down. Despite the leg kicks Machida was still good hand strikes the whole fight, and still counter almost every strike shogun threw.

I think to really win that fight in the last couple rounds shogun needed to show more aggression and start head hunting a bit or go for take downs, machida was tired and vulnerable but shogun did not do enough to take it from him.

I think these are the two best Light Heavies around and I think the next fight will be even better. If machida is able to improve his leg kick defense I think he still is just a smidge better technically and just a tiny bit quicker overall and will catch Shogun at somepoint. If Machida can't fix the leg kick problem Shogun will gain confidence and become more agressive and eventually hurt machida with hands or clinch.

Rogan sucked big time he simple missed the many many counter both fighters landed and to my eyes saw hand exchanges as more even then they were. He seemed to fall into the trap of seeing anything short of dominance for Machida as win for the other fighter.