bkrysko
Verified Trader
After the first time I watched the fight, I believed Rua would win a split decision due to how close the fight was. I had Machida taking Rounds 2 and 3 clearly, Rua clearly the 4th and barely taking the fifth. It was close and a rematch will determine it, which is fair.
However, the one thing I can't stand is how people are saying Rua clearly won the fight. No he didn't. Could he have got the decision? Yes. Would I have argued? Not really. Machida Won, am I going to argue? No. To me it was the right call, albeit close call.
I watched the fight twice to try and analyze why it was scored the way it was and it made sense. Rua landed two (count 'em, TWO) shots to Machida's head and one to his neck. Beyond that he landed lots of kicks and nothing else. Machida landed 5 or 6 clean blows to Rua's head and several to the body (I still don't know why he didn't go for Shogun's legs more though??). To me the determining aspect of the fight was that Machida stuffed 6 of 6 takedown attempts and he did very well control the fight. He did not mind the kicks until the last round. Then you could tell he did not want to eat them anymore and tried a different strategy.
Also, to those of you complaining that all Machida did was run away. Are you high or have you never watched a Machida fight before? That has always been his strategy. He is a counter striker, he'll dance away from the opponent until the opponent gets frustrated and pushes too hard and makes mistakes. Then boom, fights over. Shogun handled this very wisely by not pushing too hard and you could tell Machida was thrown off by it.
All in all it was very close, I would not have argued if either hand was raised BUT that being said. If I was a judge and I had to score the fight. To me it would have been 48-47 Machida. More clean strikes, more diversity, more octagon control and better Grappling. Shogun definitely had more strikes and more octagon agression but that simply was not enough.
However, the one thing I can't stand is how people are saying Rua clearly won the fight. No he didn't. Could he have got the decision? Yes. Would I have argued? Not really. Machida Won, am I going to argue? No. To me it was the right call, albeit close call.
I watched the fight twice to try and analyze why it was scored the way it was and it made sense. Rua landed two (count 'em, TWO) shots to Machida's head and one to his neck. Beyond that he landed lots of kicks and nothing else. Machida landed 5 or 6 clean blows to Rua's head and several to the body (I still don't know why he didn't go for Shogun's legs more though??). To me the determining aspect of the fight was that Machida stuffed 6 of 6 takedown attempts and he did very well control the fight. He did not mind the kicks until the last round. Then you could tell he did not want to eat them anymore and tried a different strategy.
Also, to those of you complaining that all Machida did was run away. Are you high or have you never watched a Machida fight before? That has always been his strategy. He is a counter striker, he'll dance away from the opponent until the opponent gets frustrated and pushes too hard and makes mistakes. Then boom, fights over. Shogun handled this very wisely by not pushing too hard and you could tell Machida was thrown off by it.
All in all it was very close, I would not have argued if either hand was raised BUT that being said. If I was a judge and I had to score the fight. To me it would have been 48-47 Machida. More clean strikes, more diversity, more octagon control and better Grappling. Shogun definitely had more strikes and more octagon agression but that simply was not enough.
