Shogun VS Machida – WTF M8?

Photo courtesy of MMAweekly.com by Scott Peterson

Shogun VS Machida – WTF M8?
BY MATTHEW KAPLOWITZ

If you are pissed by the judges decision in Shogun VS Machida, raise your hand! Ok, you can put it down now and get back to complaining on the forums about it. If you were one of the millions who saw UFC 104 on Saturday evening, you were also among millions who were shocked when Machida was announced as winner after being taken to the limits in what was arguably his greatest challenge in the octagon to date. Mauricio “Shogun” Rua brought the pain through the championship rounds, but by the end of the fight, both fighters raised their hands assuming victory, despite a growing redness on Machida’s ribcage and a mouse under his eye. Disappointment and jeers came when Lyoto was announced as the winner, and to add insult to injury, via unanimous decision. How could anyone sane make that decision? Let’s take a deep breath, break it down and try to figure this out.

This fight was a battle of Muay Thai VS Karate in many peoples eyes, despite both being very adept in all aspects of the MMA game, but when it came time to hook the gloves up, it turned into five rounds of kickboxing. If we take a look at FightMetric.com, we see an analysis that documents that Rua landed almost twice as many strikes as Machida. Machida landed more body shots but Shogun connected with over 3/4 of his low kicks which would be 48 out of 68 attempts! Shogun has one of the best accuracy rates among any fighters in the UFC and it showed during this fight.

Rua kept to a very strict gameplan of sniping Machida whenever the opportunity presented itself, but did little to create great openings for himself. He constantly changed pace, picking his shots, breaking, then rushing to clinch, breaking, then back to a shot, then a charging attack, and so on. Shogun keeps things as exciting as going to the PartyPoker site, maybe even more so, and also sets up a blistering pace that can cause anticipation in your opponent from where the next strike will be and confusion where what direction it will come from. This would be a good strategy to slowly wear out a more aggressive opponent but Machida played a very safe and overly patient game. Keeping in his karate stance, Machida employed the usual back and forth movement and forced Rua to play into it as well, which was a mistake in not using more lateral movement to pick some stronger targets.

Marcus Rosale's Scorecard

I was really hoping that this fight would show us that Machida is in fact a more exciting fighter than he lets on to. Sadly, it did the opposite with Machida being gradually prodded over the course of five rounds. Rua landed good shots and Machida defended when possible, rarely offering much back.

Judges Cecil Peoples and Marcos Rosales gave Machida the first three rounds while Rua won the final two. Judge Nelson “Doc” Hamilton scored rounds one and five for Rua, but gave Machida the middle rounds, making the overall tally 48-47 in Machida’s favor. Shogun was visibly upset but a gentleman in defeat and Machida was equally humble, but accepting of the win.

Cecil Peoples' scorecard

Something to think about, in the minds of many judges, when it comes to a title situation, the challenger must really put on a great performance to win the belt, otherwise the champion will most likely retain. Machida was taking hits but was never in serious danger during the 25 minutes. Rua was landing but unable to really capitalize and put more pressure on Machida and break his gameplan or his spirit. Rua did more to Machida than any other opponent ever did to him, but it was still an underwhelming performance by both Brazilians and in the judges eyes, that might have been a deciding factor as well. The way the fight was unfolding, it seemed like neither man had the intent to finish, a fault in the strategy of being patient. Then again, this is the CSAC we are talking about and has there been an MMA event in California that was not marred by controversy?

Sp what is my take on this debacle – same as yours. For the first time in my life, I am agreeing with Joe Rogan on something. I watched this fight again, despite almost taking a nap by the time round 3 hobbled by, and I could not see how Machida retained other than that Rua just did not do enough to impress the judges and Machida did just enough to please them. I would not normally call something like this a robbery but it was a unanimous decision and that is something I was very surprised to see! This was Machida’s chance to show he can be exciting, even though Rua was reserved and taking this fight slower than usual, but in the end Lyoto gave us the performance we expected, difference being no punctuation in the end. I was hoping we would see Machida explode just briefly here and there to cause some damage, especially in the last two minutes of the fight. But in his mind, he was winning the fight and probably felt no reason to waste energy. His sense of urgency was not there and at the end of the fight, his bandwagon emptied out pretty fast.

To quote the great Steve Urkel, “Don’t fret my pet!” as Machida, Rua and Dana White have agreed to an immediate rematch via verbal commitments from all three parties, as reported by Loretta Hunt on Sherdog.com. I guess we all want to see this match happen so we can resolve who the real Light Heavyweight Champion is, but with a performance like this from both men, do we want to sit through another 25 minutes of this? It is the Machida puzzle, it’s what makes him so enigmatic and challenging to fight. He is the ultimate counter striker, so how do you engage a man who refuses to engage you?

Nelson Hamilton's scorecard

To sum this up, there is a famous karate anecdote that goes like this, “Karate Ni Sente Nashi.” For those who do not speak Japanese, it means “There is no first attack in Karate.” and that sums up Machida’s tactics in a nutshell. Rua did more to Machida than Machida did to him, but according to the judges, it was not enough and now we may have to look forward to watching a 25 minute instant replay of what we just saw on Saturday in a few months from now. Who really got robbed by this fight? We did.

To see the stats on fightmetric head to http://fightmetric.com/fights/Machida-Shogun.html and for Loretta Hunt’s article head to http://www.sherdog.com/news/news/machida-rua-agree-to-immediate-rematch-20544 and for more on the scorecards head to http://www.examiner.com/x-22098-Knoxville-MMA-Examiner~y2009m10d26-UFC-104-Machida-vs-Shogun-results