Shogun vs Machida

November 12, 2009 / 4:35 p.m.
Posted by Alden Chiu
Univeristy of Texas at Austin Student

While this is old news, I've let the anger build for some time now that I must publicly address my disdain for the judge’s decision at UFC 104 for the Light Heavyweight Championship.

Lyoto “The Dragon” Machida, the champion, fought Mauricio “Shogun” Hua in what many thought would be a 1-sided fight in Machida’s favor. To my surprise, and much of the world, that was not the case. Shogun implemented a strategy that completely controlled Machida’s elusive and dominating nature as a flawless 15-0 fighter.

Machida is characterized as an elusive fighter that has never lost a round. He picks and chooses his punches that typically always find their target. He has a strong in-out striking pattern that has sent top competitors like Thiago Silva and Rashad Evans crumbling to the mat.

Obviously, this tid-bit did not go unheeded to Shogun. In fact, Shogun’s baseball bat leg and mid kicks sent the Dragon limping into the final rounds.

Granted, the fight was not the most exciting, but all judging factors seem to fall into Shogun’s favor: octagon control, landed punches, landed kicks, and power. Too bad the judges forgot to take off their blindfolds and scored the bout in Machida’s favor.

Arguably, the challenger has the burden of decisively beating the champion. While the fight did not have encumbering amounts of excitement or exchanges, I only remember Shogun’s shattering kicks on Machida.

Overall, I’m glad that someone was able to expose some weaknesses in The Dragon’s style. For awhile, it seemed that a majority of the weight classes in the UFC had uncontested champions: Lyoto Machida, Anderson Silva, and George St. Pierre. There doesn’t seem to be any contenders to fight these beasts within their division.

The sad thing is, even with the highly demanded and announced rematch between Shogun and Machida, I believe that the Dragon will adapt to the strategy implemented by Shogun. I actually predict Machida doing much better this next fight.