Looking Back at Shogun Rua's Second Fight Against Mark Coleman

MMA folks always say “styles make fights” but in the next breath they forget about that when anointing the next “untouchable one”. This article was beautifully done.

This could also be the very Shogun of old. I think its just wishful thinking on everyone’s part because we want to see a champ that can dominate and finish fights like Shogun used to in Pride. The fight he had with Lil Nog was one for the ages and I think that’s is the kind of Shogun everyone hopes to see.

MMA Fans and media are too quick to say, “He’s the best ever” or “Holy crap, it’s the end of the world!” There doesn’t seem to be a middle ground, and I am glad people are more cautious with Shogun this time around. Yes, he has Machida’s number, but I too would like to see him against a grinding wrestler to see just how well he does. As for Anderson Silva, I think that fight is still a couple fights away, if at all. Silva still has to go through Shonnen and Belfort, and by that time, Shogun may have lost the belt by then. With all the great fighters at LHW, it seems unreasonable to me for someone to keep the belt longer than one or maybe two title defenses. The only thing is, the LHW division isn’t like the WW division, where the wrestlers seem to dominate the top, though a fight against Rashad Evans would prove to be quite interesting, so long as Rashad sticks to his wrestling.

I’d like to see him beat a good light heavyweight wrestler before we’re ready to crown him as a top pound for pound fighter.

Makes sense to me, but that doesn’t make a fight with Anderson Silva any less appealing to me. That fight has exciting written all over it.

I agree with you though wrestling and cardio may be Shogun’s weaker points, but it isn’t like there is any perfect fighter in the LHW division. There is a reason there has been so much turnover and the belt has been changing hands so often. I’d still put Shogun at the top of the heap.

Rome, that’s with 7 exclamation points.
Really great article. Every time I dismiss Couture as an old man that would get creamed by a striker, he finds way to give them fits and tire them out.

I knew some one was eventually going to tag Machida for not protecting his face just like I know some one will take Shogun to task before we know it.

GSP, Anderson and Fedor are truly the exception to the norm.

Look at the reigns of the last 4 champs.

Am I allowed to post gifs from some of the prelims in a fanshot format.?

As I wrote yesterday:

http://communities.canada.com/theprovince/blogs/keyboard-kimura/archive/2010/05/10/rua-s-victory-highlights-unpredictable-nature-of-mma.aspx

Wasn’t the Coleman fight his first one back after the surgery? He looked sluggish in that one but had some better form in his next fights.

The fact that he went 25 full minutes with Machida after the Griffin and Coleman debacles don’t exactly say bad cardio.

Keep in mind Machida took him down a number of times in the second fight and he didn’t seem fazed. He’s also fought smothering wrestlers like Arona and been fine.

I like the view from the front of this bandwagon and i’m not ready to jump off just yet.

…and just going to the last bit, I’d say that what killed me about Shogun beating Machida in their second fight was that he did almost exactly the opposite of both a) what he did in their first fight and b) what everyone said he’d have to do.

After UFC 98 there were tons of articles (hi Nate!) about Shotokan Karate and how you weren’t going to learn it overnight and how if you even wanted to lay a glove on Machida you’d better start going to your local dojo. People went on and on about footwork and hand position and posture and on and on and on.

And in their first fight, Shogun clearly listened to all that. He kept his distance, he fought with strategy, and he out-struck, out-moved and even out-eluded Machida. This didn’t win him the fight.

What got him the W was brawling. He went in there, fought with some strategy, but mostly just put pressure on Machida, backed him up and kept his fists in Machida’s face. There was no Karate in his movement. No eluding. No carefully orchestrated footwork. Shogun won that fight not by trying to fight like Machida, but by fighting more like Wanderlei.

And, personally: I loved every second of it.

Don’t forget his fight with Nakamura in Pride. It was basically a grappling match where he was exausted by the end of it. We’ll see how his conditioning is when he faces a wrestler.

Another thing that’s been pissing me off is that people are acting like Shogun beat Machida by brawling. Ironically enough the Shogun that came at UFC 113 was the Shogun Machida was prepared for at UFC 104. The difference is that at 113 Machida completely abandoned the things that had made him such a successful fighter in the past. The counter-attacking and elusiveness wasn’t there at all.

He collapsed his stance, limiting his movement, and stood in the pocket with Rua. He turned from an elusive counter-striker into a brawler. He fought Shogun’s fight and paid the price.

It’s such a shame he let all of the BS get to his head…

both of them in the UFC and both of them while being injured (or coming back from an injury). He has also said that the he was not prepared for the size of the octagon when he made his debut. Cardio is not a problem with Shogun, two fights out of 23 seems like a very small percentage…

like most fighters, have a problem with cardio when they are getting controlled. I always thought Coleman didn’t get enough credit for wearing Rua out, that’s practically his while game.

I think Rua will have trouble with anyone that can grind on him for a bit. The issue is surviving Shogun long enough to grind on him. That’s a seriously difficult task for anyone.

Everyone seems to forget that Shogun existed prior to coming to the UFC. If we look at Rua’s whole career, cardio issues have been a problem for 2 fights and he won one of them. I get that there’s going to be a rush on the war wagon, but it seems very likely that Shogun had issues with training that have now been resolved. Issues that didn’t exist outside of two fights.

People get hurt, people have bad training camps, jumping to conclusions about a guy from Chute Boxe half assing in training seems a bit extreme.

Just asking.

You accuse people of getting on the hype train too hard for Shogun, but you’re guilty of getting on the hate on Coleman train too early, in my opinion. Coleman had a couple of good fights against Shogun and Bonnar and he deserves credit for them. Sure, Couture destroyed him, match ups make fights. But that fight should be put in context.

I do agree with the larger point that everyone seems to think the champ is unbeatable, whether it’s Machida or anyone else. Wait till someone defends their belt a little before we make that judgment. You fight #1 challengers enough and one of them will beat you.

but I don’t understand why everyone keeps saying that Machida didn’t fight “his fight” and got sucked into brawling with Shogun. It seemed to me like Machida was doing almost exactly what he always does by slipping the first two or three punches and tying to counter, it’s just that Shogun was throwing 6 and 7 punch combos. The only thing I saw Machida do differently was drop his hands to block the leg/body kicks, which is when Shogun would come with the overhand. And that can be directly attributed to the damage his legs took in their first fight… am I missing something?

Isn’t Shogun on the small side for the LHW division? I don’t know why I think that, I have no proof; but if he’s small for the division, then of course he’s going to have some trouble with Huge grinders.

the part where the Fedor Fandom in you had to come out in the last paragraph…
Write up a good article without mentioning Fedor…Anderson and GSP earned it, but Fedor has been flying outside of the radar for about 2.5 years now…Not his fault, but he still cant be compared to any of the relevant UFC HWs of TODAY!
Rua does get taken down by everyone who tries…one of the drawbacks of being so ’come foward/shoot first and ask questions later…
I could not see Rua lasting past the 2nd round with Jon Jones…
On a side note, Mark Coleman implemented the WORST Shawn Tompkins gameplan ever in the Randy fight…
Coleman would have easily taken Randy down…
Randy and Rua might be and interesting fight, but Randy cant take a punch like he used to…

Look, Get off of Shoguns sack already a few of you. He fought a great fight and knocked out one of the best ever in my opinion. He can thank Lyoto for not fighting his elusive style like he has most of his career. Maybe Shogun would have won if he had, but Lyoto got knocked out trying to finish the fight much too early. Great job by Shogun though. He has alot of class like Lyoto as well. That’s what I love about these two.

Now, Shogun vs Couture? LOL!!! Randy will dirty box him and then ground and pound Shogun. I know this breaks many hearts, but if you actually think that he is a well rounded Mixed Martial Artist, well then you know nothing about the sport. Shogun can beat Rampage, maybe even Griffin the next time around, but he is not gonna beat Randy Couture, Rashad Evans, or even possibly a few others. I Predict that if Evans wins (I am rooting for Quinton by the way), that he will taike back his belt, which he lost from Lyoto, from Shogun because of the different match up styles. Rampage? Unless he catches Shogun in the later rounds, I think Shogun wins that match up easily.

As far as Machida is concerned, You have not heard the last from The Dragon. If he goes back to his roots, he will defeat Shogun or whoever has the belt when that time comes. So all you Machida haters can enjoy this while it lasts. Which won’t be long the way it’s looking. I still wish Shogun the best because I think he is a great fighter, a great person and a great representative of MMA, ~R.W