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I've written a fair bit about Lyoto Machida's technique, and I've also grappled a fair bit with the question of whether or not Shogun Rua can beat the champ. So I thought I'd do a bit more of a technical breakdown about Shogun's chances. First off, let's talk about the standing range of the game because that's where most of the fight is likely to happen.

Reminder, I am anything but an expert on this kind of stuff. I've never trained seriously or competed. I'm simply a fan trying to understand what I'm seeing. Corrections and clarifications from readers who are better informed than I are not only welcome, they're encouraged!

For roughly two years from the time Mauricio "Shogun" Rua won the Pride Middleweight Grand Prix in 2005, many considered him to be the best 205lb fighter in the sport. A BJJ blackbelt, he could fight at a distance, he could wrestle, he was devastating in the clinch and for God's sake never let him get on top of you.

Shogun began training Muay Thai in his teens, trained at the legendary Chute Boxe camp and somewhere along the way he picked up a little bit of capoeira to sprinkle on top as well. He's racked up 15 of his 18 wins by KO or TKO.

He's incredibly athletic and proficient at most aspects of MMA and this gave him two big advantages over most of his opponents. If he got into trouble in one phase of a fight he could force the fight to another phase of the game and get out of trouble.

But he has rarely faced opponents who had truly technical approaches to the stand up game. Especially not someone as precise and opportunistic as Machida.

In the full entry we'll get down to specific examples from Shogun's PRIDE career and look at the strengths and weaknesses of his standing game.

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Mauricio "Shogun" Rua thrived in Japan under rules that allowed him to soccer kick and stomp downed opponents.

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Michael David Smith asks the question:

Look at the career record of Shogun Rua, and you'll notice something unusual: Of his 18 victories, two are listed as TKO-stomps, and three are listed as TKO-soccer kicks. That's unusual, of course, because stomps and soccer kicks are illegal in the UFC and other American promotions. Shogun became one of the best and most exciting fighters in the world in Pride, where stomps and soccer kicks were allowed, but as he prepares to fight UFC light heavyweight champion Lyoto Machida at UFC 104, I've had a few fans ask me: Can Shogun become a champion under American rules?

Shogun's reliance upon stomps and soccer kicks was actually greater than you might think from hearing that he used them to finish five of his 18 victories: In other fights, such as his 2005 victory over Alistair Overeem, stomps and soccer kicks were an integral part of how he took control of the bout, even if they weren't the way he finished it. Stomps and soccer kicks were, quite simply, Shogun's best weapons, and he's now fighting under rules that take his best weapons from him.

I've been meaning to do a Judo Chop on exactly this topic, and if time allows, I still may.

Regardless, I'm glad MDS is raising the question. It's the obvious question about Shogun's adaptation to UFC rules. I've never thought steroids were that big a factor in his difficulties adapting. Other than blanket assertions that since PRIDE didn't drug test Shogun must have been roiding (as if drug tests really prevent PDE abuse), there's no evidence.

There is massive evidence that Shogun's two devastating knee injuries and the following major surgeries happened and that had to impact his performance. He's suffered the kind of injuries that ended a career less than fifteen years ago. The jury is still out on whether he'll ever be the same athlete.

But I'd argue that the different rule set and fighting area (cage vs ring) has had the biggest impact on Shogun's game. Chute Boxe, the legendary camp where Shogun learned his trade, thrived in the ring from the beginning. Whether it was Jose "Pele" Landi's legendary feud with BJJ ace Jorge "Macaco" Patino or Wanderlei Silva's legendary bouts, the Chute Boxe fighters positively fed off the chaos they could create in the ropes at the edge of the ring.

Tying up an opponent in the ropes while firing a barrage of knees, sprawling way past the ropes to stuff a shot, stomping a opponent tangled in the bottom rope were all hallmarks of the Chute Boxe style. Shogun was the ultimate product of the camp, the purest exponent of their style.

He used the ring to fullest advantage so it should be no shocker that he's had trouble adapting to the cage. His mentor Wanderlei Silva struggled in the UFC cage back in the 1990s (long before there was drug testing FWIW) and still has never matched his triumphs in the ring. It remains to be seen if Shogun will.

It's also an interesting commentary on different cultural mores of what constitutes socially acceptable sporting violence in Japan and the U.S. In Japan, soccer kicks are fine, but elbows are not because the Japanese don't want to see blood in their contests . In America we are apparently revolted by the unfairness and obvious dangerousness of kicking a downed man in the head, but we don't mind rivers of blood.

Some doctoral student should do a PhD on this and throw in the different rules of censorship in place for pornography in the two countries as well. In Japan they allow all kinds of acts Americans consider obscene but they pixel out the performers' genitals out of a similar squeamishness with bodily functions.

One last thing I want to say is this: I think it's not only valid, but important, that major league MMA fights be contested in at least two types of venues, if not more.

Dealing with logistics and adapting to differing environments are essential elements of combat strategy in all forms. In warfare it's always been a given that some armies thrive only in their home terrain (mountain, jungle, steppe, etc) while others learn to adapt and conquer many kinds of territory. The fact that from its modern inception MMA fights have been contested in two main environments (the cage, the ring) has given the sport a true frission of unpredictable reality. I hope we can continue to see this in the future.

Tennis wouldn't be the same without its alternating surfaces -- grass, clay, hardcourt. MMA needs both rings and cages to truly remain a test of martial arts. The more fighters adapt to a single surface and lose their ability to adapt, the more we're playing a game rather than testing skills and strategies in a realistic simulation of fighting.

As I noted in our previous Lyoto Machida Judo Chop, if you take a brief survey of the Bloody Elbow Technique section, you'll see we've spent a lot of time discussing Machida. We've talked about his elusiveness, his karate wizardry, and the difficulty of mastering Shotokan Karate. We've reviewed his DVD set. And we've even discussed the more standard (Muay Thai and jiu jitsu) aspects of his MMA game.

But never fear fight geeks, we're just getting started. I've never discussed one of the aspects of Machida's game that has probably gotten the most attention: his foot sweeps. Even back in the days when most fans considered him boring people were sitting up and noticing his use of this standard karate technique in MMA. 

As Cage Potato wrote:

Double-leg takedowns are for the commoners - when a true martial artist wants to get you to the mat, he simply hooks his foot out and delicately pushes you over it. Yes, it's a little strange to see a technique from the karate classes of our youth being used to punk some of the world's top fighters. But Lyoto isn't concerned with inflicting more damage than anybody else, or finishing fights as quickly as possible. His only goal is to showcase the superiority of his style. He'd rather break an opponent down mentally than physically. Hence, the foot-sweep, which comes out of nowhere, turns your momentum against you, and frustrates you out of your gameplan. When performed by the Dragon, it's poetry.

It will be very interesting to see if Machida will be able to pull off his signature move against Mauricio "Shogun" Rua at UFC 104.

In the full entry we'll talk about some specific instances where Lyoto has used this family of moves to put opponents on the ground.

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Getting ready for UFC 104: Machida vs. Shogun, I'm going to do some Judo Chops on the main eventers, Lyoto Machida and Mauricio "Shogun" Rua. We'll start with a discussion of the champ, Lyoto Machida.

If you take a brief survey of the Bloody Elbow Technique section, you'll see we've spent a lot of time discussing Machida. We've talked about his elusiveness, his karate wizardry, and the difficulty of mastering Shotokan Karate. We've reviewed his DVD set. But one thing we haven't done is discussed the more traditional aspects of his MMA game.

Machida is an incredibly well-rounded martial artist. Like Georges St. Pierre he is of the generation of modern champions who first saw the UFC in their early teens and began training with an eye to competing in MMA. Here's a good summary of his training background from World of Combat:

Lyoto Machia began training in Karate at the young age of three. He later trained in Sumo, when he was around 12. At 15 he learned the art of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. He won a couple of amateur karate tournaments while he was a youth. For example, in 2001 he won the Pan American Karate Tournament. In 2000, at the the Brazilian Sumo Championship, he was runner up in the 115 kg divison.

Hi education and degree have helped in his career. Lyoto Machida's has a college degree in Physical Education. He was introduced to a Japanese professional wrestling champion, namely Antonio Inoki, while he was in college. Antonio Inoki took Lyoto under his wing and groomed him as a protege. Much later Lyoto took up training at the New Japan Pro Wrestling dojo in Tokyo, he trained in wrestling here. He also did his training at Muay Thai in Thailand.

His second UFC fight, a three round decision over David Heath at UFC 70, didn't get much attention at the time. It was considered such a dud that the UFC elected to not air it on Spike TV when the event debuted for American audiences. But it's worth a look if you want to increase your understanding of Machida's game.

Typically for Machida, he used the increased attacking range of Shotokan Karate to evade Heath's every strike while repeatedly catching Heath with sharp kicks to the body. But in the third round, it was Machida's master of the basics of Muay Thai and jiu jitsu that allowed him to end the fight with a knock down from knees followed by a guard pass to side mount and then mount, allowing him to ice the decision in dominant fashion.

We'll break it down blow by blow in the full entry.

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Mauricio "Shogun" Rua has his work cut out for him at UFC 104.  He'll have to do something no other fighter has been able to do with any regularity: land strikes on Lyoto Machida.  According to FightMetric, opponents have only landed 0.64 strikes per minute against the Brazilian (as of January '09).  The only man better?  Fedor Emelianenko.

The best example of Machida's ability to avoid damage came during the first round of his fight with Tito Ortiz at UFC 84.  Ortiz threw his entire arsenal at Machida - right hooks, head kicks, double legs - only to find himself staring at an empty section of fence.

By the end of the round, Ortiz could no longer hide the frustration from his face.  Machida completely shut him down, and added insult to injury when he put Ortiz on his back with ten seconds left before the bell.  While Ortiz began to land with some consistency as the contest wore on (Machida reportedly entered the cage with the flu) and locked on a surprise armbar in the fight's final moments, he never looked comfortable at any stage.

The numbers from the first round highlight the dominance.  Machida landed 23 of 34 strikes (8 power shots) and was successful on his only takedown attempt.  Ortiz, meanwhile, couldn't find a target for all 18 of his strikes and got stuffed in both of his takedown attempts.

This is the problem Shogun inherits on October 24th.  How do you hit what isn't there?

Gray Maynard locks on a kimura and a head scissors on Roger Huerta at UFN 19.

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Wednesday night's UFC lightweight bout between Gray Maynard vs Roger Huerta was a vintage three round war between two top contenders in one of the most stacked divisions in all of MMA. And yet, judging by the fan response here on BloodyElbow, it's not being appreciated for the great fight it was.

A lot of this is due to the fact that neither fighter is currently a fan favorite. Roger Huerta has burned up most of his goodwill with the fans by refusing to resign with the UFC, ostensibly because he is leaving fighting behind for an acting career (we'll see if he signs with a major movie studio or Bellator FC first).

His opponent, Gray Maynard is saddled with an undeserved reputation for being a lay and pray artist. Yes, he does have an excellent wrestling pedigree and yes he has used positional dominance to grind out a few wins. But Maynard showed at UFN 19 that he is well on his way to becoming an accomplished mixed martial artist who is mastering the different phases of the game.

First off, he consistently beat Roger Huerta to the punch, landing hard straight rights. It's true that Huerta was able to often get the advantage in longer exchanges in the first round, but in the second and third he adjusted his footwork and begun to clearly get the better of Huerta on the feet.

More impressive to me was the kimura he locked on to Huerta in the third round. Maynard didn't get the tap but that's because Roger Huerta is a tough, tough man who doesn't know when to quit.

What's more, Maynard wound up in a position more often seen in old catch-wrestling bouts than in jiu jitsu matches by catching Huerta in a head-scissors with his legs.

Here's some background on the Kimura:

Kimura (Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu), chicken wing/double wristlock (wrestling), or reverse keylock are terms used to specify a medial keylock known in judo as gyaku ude-garami (reverse arm entanglement) or simply as ude-garami. The application is similar to the americana, except that it is reversed. It needs some space behind the opponent to be effective, and can be applied from the side control or guard. Contrary to the americana, the opponent's wrist is grabbed with the hand on the same side, and the opposite arm is put on the back side the opponent's arm, and again grabbing the attacker's wrist and forming a figure-four. By controlling the opponent's body and cranking the arm away from the attacker, pressure is put on the shoulder joint, and depending on the angle, also the elbow joint (in some variations the opponent's arm is brought behind their back, resulting in a finishing position resembling that of the hammerlock outlined below). The kimura was named after the judoka Masahiko Kimura, who used it to defeat one of the founders of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Hélio Gracie.

We'll get into the details of how Maynard locked the hold on and how Huerta escaped in the full entry, with lots of animated gifs.

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Matt Lindland's Dirty Boxing for Mixed Martial Arts is surprisingly good.I didn't expect as much as I do from some Victory Belt manuals perhaps because I've got a bias against wrestling, perhaps because Matt Lindland comes with a lot of baggage.

Let's get that out of the way up front. Yeah, yeah, Lindland is the guy who put together a documentary about how he was being blackballed from the UFC because they fear him and then went out and got KTFO'd in under a minute in his very next fight. He got run out of the UFC in a dispute over a sponsor and he's funny looking. He got his position on the U.S. Olympic team by going to court to appeal a loss in the qualifiers.

All of that said, the guy won a silver medal in Greco-Roman wrestling in the 2000 Olympics and has won more than 20 MMA bouts. In his twelve year MMA career he's beaten top fighters like Pat Miletich, Carlos Newton, Jeremy Horn, Ivan Salaverry, Travis Lutter and Mike Van Arsdale.

As one of the founders of Team Quest, along with Randy Couture and Dan Henderson, Lindland pioneered the path of elite wrestlers entering MMA. He also was among the first to prove that wrestlers could expand their game and successfully incorporate submissions and strikes into their MMA games. The even split of his wins between decisions, submissions and TKO's testifies to his well-rounded mastery of MMA.

Now let's talk about the book.

There have been some complaints that the book is misnamed. The critics are saying that it's a wrestling manual for MMA, not a text book on how to use Dirty Boxing in MMA. To some extent that is a fair criticism. The book's original title was "From Wrestling to MMA" and that might have been a more apt title. But at the same time, this is easily the best book how to apply Dirty Boxing in MMA, bar none.

Sure, only somewhat less than a third of the book specifically discusses striking. But the key thing is the context in which that discussion of striking takes place.

Matt Lindland's Dirty Boxing for Mixed Martial Arts details a complete MMA system for the standup game. Where Randy Couture's Wrestling for Fighting is a primer that outlines the basic techniques of getting and defending takedowns, Lindland's book provides a complete system. The closest comparison I've read would be Eddie Bravo's two books.

Like Bravo's books, this one provides the diligent student with a series of options from every key position. Lindland outlines the key standing control positions and shows how to transition back and forth between them so you can take advantage of your opponent's mistakes and avoid his strengths. The structure of the book is also logical and builds a strong foundation at the beginning that allows him to build a complex but sold system by the end.

Reading this book really reinforced by respect for wrestling as a martial art. It's as much built on skill, science and strategy as jiu jitsu, Muay Thai, Judo or boxing. Lindland's moves are fundamentally predicated on misdirection and deception. He shows how to bait your opponent into moving and then how to use that energy against him. In that, Lindland's approach to takedowns reminds me of nothing so much as Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira's approach to the sweep.

It's only once he's established the foundation and shown the reader how to use the techniques of Greco-Roman wrestling to thoroughly control your opponent's body that he elaborates on how to take advantage of that control with strikes, throws and submissions.

The book is the usual great Victory Belt production. The sections are color coded for easy reference in the gym. Each move is described step-by-step and each step is illustrated by color photos. I did notice that many of the action shots are a bit blurry, this is an unfortunate distraction but doesn't impact the educational value of the book as the shots that show how to set up the grips and positioning are crystal clear, it's only the mid-air shots of the throws that tend to be blurry. In trying to do my due diligence as a book reviewer, I did conclude that the lack of an index is regrettable, although the organization, color-coding and detailed table of contents go a long way towards eliminating the need for one.

The book is co-authored Erich Krauss and Glen Cordoza. Krauss has also done books with Fedor Emelianenko, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, Randy Couture, two with B.J. Penn, Karo Parisyan, Marcelo Garcia, Dave Camarillo, and Anderson Silva plus two with Eddie Bravo and I've enjoyed them all.

In the second round, Nogueira swept Couture and got the mount position (via Tatame.com).

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In this installment of the Judo Chop, we'll talk about Round Two of this instant classic bout. I've written already on what an epic bout UFC 102's Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira vs Randy Couture was. Here's Kevin Iole talking about the back and forth drama of the bout:

Nogueira knocked Couture down about two minutes into the fight and then spent about a half-minute with a choke, trying for the submission. It was a pattern that would repeat itself throughout the fight.

The former UFC and PRIDE titleholder would get Couture in a compromising position, Couture would make a heroic escape to bring the crowd to its feet and then they'd go toe-to-toe for a while before the cycle started over.

Nogueira had to fight the inclination to get frustrated when nothing he was doing would result in a finish.

"I'd just try something else, a different submission, something different," Nogueira said. "I knew he was prepared to have a good fight. I knew it wouldn't be easy to fight Randy. When I got his back, he escaped. When I got the triangle, he escaped. He threw some very tough elbows. I knew it was a tough fight and I was prepared for that."

In the second round, Couture found himself in Nogueira's guard after foiling a guillotine attempt by the Brazilian. Couture's famous for his ground and pound game, but Nogueira's also known for having the most dangerous guard game in the heavyweight class. We'll talk about what happened in the full entry.

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