Contributed by: Sweet Pea
UFC 104 ended in controversy last Saturday when the main event, Lyoto Machida versus Mauricio “Shogun” Rua, resulted in a unanimous decision victory for Machida. Machida retained his light heavyweight championship belt and his undefeated mixed martial arts record (now 16-0). The decision was met with boos from the audience and shock from many fans watching the event on pay per view. Everyone who saw the fight to whom I have thus far spoken thinks Rua won, and I count myself among them, but I also think the judges’ decision is defensible.
Historically, judges are apprehensive to award a victory to the challenger in a close title fight. Conventional wisdom states that in order to become the champion, you have to beat the champion. If there is any doubt, the champion scores the win.
Machida’s style is often described as elusive. He is what boxing announcers would call “smooth.” According to a recent issue of Black Belt Magazine, in all of mixed martial arts he is hit the second fewest number of times per minute in the ring, outmatched only by Fedor Emelianenko. In this respect, he even surpasses Anderson Silva who is largely regarded as the best pound-for-pound fighter in the UFC. Since arriving on the scene, Machida has only been in danger once, when in a his fight against Tito Ortiz, he nearly fell prey to a triangle choke. Keeping all these things in mind, Machida was heavily favored to defeat Rua.
Ultimately, I think this expectation worked against him in the eyes of the fans. Halfway through round two, it became obvious Rua was giving Machida some difficulty. We have never seen Machida struggle in any of his bouts since arriving in the UFC, and I believe the shock of Rua’s unexpectedly good performance in some way biased spectators into thinking it was better than it actually was. This situation was not helped with Joe Rogan’s incessantly biased commentary, as he simply failed to acknowledge any of Machida’s successes throughout the fight. (My brother-in-law, a big Shogun fan, noticed this as well.) Watching fan commentary on the fight, you would think Rua dominated the bout from beginning to end. He did not. The fight, as far as I can remember it, was very close. Machida successfully defended all of Rua’s takedown attempts, landed more blows to the head, did not get in trouble the entire fight, but did sustain a lot of damage in his legs and (less so) in his left side.
This bout will undoubtedly be remembered infamously, but for my money, it was very entertaining and has paved the way for an inevitable rematch. Rua has exposed a weakness in Machida’s game, demonstrating his reliance on countering and seeming inability to pull the trigger as an aggressor. Machida is no longer untouchable, and all the fans now know this, so I suspect the rematch will be a bigger draw than this intial encounter.
Machida now has a rival, and he is worthy.
