October 25, 2009, at 4:12 am
I’m a huge Lyoto Machida mark. I love everything about this century’s version of Bruce Lee. He was just about unstoppable. There was no reason to believe that an overagressive fighter like Shogun Rua was going to be able to avoid five rounds of lightning quick counters.
Until the fight started. Instead of the old Shogun that everyone wanted back, we got a brand new Shogun. One that couldn’t possibly have existed just a couple of years ago. Instead of seeing the explosiveness of old used to finish an opponent based solely on physical skills, We saw a brilliant game plan. Machida’s most important ability is his elusiveness. How do you take that away? By taking away his legs of course! How had we not thought of this?
I also believe that the hype got to Lyoto. He has already admitted that he had to leave Belem, where his gym is, and train on his family farm because all the people that wanted a piece of him were becoming a serious distraction. He looked gassed, and while the leg kicks were a part of it, I think that his training was not where he wanted it to be.
When you combine these two things, you got a 49-46 victory for Shogun. Everyone in the room I was in thought the exact same thing. Hell, I was already writing an article comparing Lyoto’s loss to Shogun and the loss GSP suffered to Matt Serra. (It sounds weird, but it’s more similar than you think. Stay tuned.) As the fight went to the judges, I was packing my stuff and barely even paying attention to the decision. When the decision was unanimous, I knew that Shogun had won.
Only he didn’t. He was robbed of his UFC title reign by poor judging. He was robbed by the “you have to dominate the champ” rule. Shogun did dominate Machida. He did. There was no question about it. However, it wasn’t a particularly flashy kind of domination. It was a beautifully technichal fight, but it wasn’t the most exciting affair. Shouldn’t MMA judges be capable of understanding the technical aspects of striking? Hell, give me a scorecard! Apparently, you and I get it better than Cecil Peoples and his crew of walking jokes.
The one good thing that this does is set up a rematch. Both Machida and Shogun will likely have one fight, and then they will get their chance to go at it again. This time, Shogun won’t be able to fire leg kicks at a distance because Machida will know it’s coming. He’ll have to come up with a brand new way to chop down the evergrowing tree of the Machida legacy.
He shouldn’t have to do it again, though. He did it tonight.
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