MMA Squared Ep. 24: The Shogun Wars

Hello. This is Chris, and welcome to another MMA Squared. Today we wonder, how is it that Daniel Cormier, the living #ChampChamp dropped Mauricio “Shogun” Rua’s name as a potential Light Heavyweight title contender? The reason is because he survived The Shogun Wars

Many a writer has given praise to his legendary PRIDE run and UFC championship, but the wars began with a flying knee from Jon Jones. Let it be known that after the loss, Shogun still showed up to teach an MMA seminar the next day.

The hellacious beating that followed did not end with that bout. Shogun would go on to have five round wars with Alexander Gustafsson, and and all-time great fight with Dan Henderson in which he’d survive a full on H-bomb.

The lowest point of The Shogun Wars came at hands of Chael Sonnen who submitted the Brazilian in a humiliating first round loss on FS1.

We’re not even going to mention the OSP loss. Despite these hurdles, the former champion has not only persisted, but put together his longest UFC win streak, looking better with each fight. The fight game is supposed to feed old dinosaurs to hungry young lions, but Shogun has staved off irrelevancy with wins against (ancient, admittedly) Little Nog, Corey Anderson (dropped him twice) and Gian Villante (via stoppage).

Much like his performance against Dan Henderson at UFC 139, Shogun will not let himself be stopped (by anyone less than the greatest fighter of all time), and as we enter the 5th round of his legendary career perhaps there is one more blood soaked moment of glory ahead. Even if it’s a loss.

As always, MMA Squared is brought to you by Combat Wombat. An expression of marsupial violence known... somewhere.

Take care of yourself, and I’ll talk to you next week.