Machida Retains Light Heavyweight Title

UFC 104 is one of the talks of the town—a “controversial” decision that retained Lyoto “the Dragon” Machida as the UFC Light Heavyweight Champion against the dangerous Mauricio “Shogun” Rua. To tell the readers frankly, I scored the bout 47-46 in favor of Machida. This is one of the best bouts in UFC and one of the hardest to score. Rounds one and three is for Machida while round four is for Rua and the rest had 9-9.

Rua showed early in the fight how aggressive he was, but Machida is keen and answered back when Rua try to do his things. Machida opened the bout with his sick knees and whenever they have the clinch, Machida scored his combos. Also, Machida’s takedown defense is superb—every round, Rua tried to take him down but all efforts were useless. The fight never went to the mat. In the succeeding rounds, Rua still showed his aggressiveness but Machida is intelligent and keen as an owl. He switched stance and did his hip-fakes. Whenever Rua tried to take the champion down, Machida just sprawled and Rua pushes him on the cage and strike with his knees.

Machida owned the third round because he exploded in the dying seconds while Rua owned the fourth because of his vicious leg kicks that hurt Machida. Judges gave the fifth round to Rua. Spectators were not amused on what was the outcome of the game. They greeted the champion with their booes. Machida admitted that his performance is not as good as before but he feels that he won the fight while the classy Rua told the public that he felt he won the last three rounds that are why he was never as aggressive as compared to the first three rounds.

Many fans said that Rua was the more aggressive and the fresher fighter after the bout—Rua must be and should be because he is the challenger. According to Dana White, a rematch will be scheduled. Machida (16-0) is still undefeated while Rua (16-4) suffered his fourth loss. In fairness to Shogun, the Shogun we saw against Forrest Griffin, Mark Coleman and Chuck Liddell is very different from the Shogun we’ve seen against Machida.

On the undercard bouts, Joe “Daddy” Stevenson won via tap-out due to strikes against Spencer “the King” Fisher. Also, Cain Velasquez destroyed Big Ben Rothwell while the latter protested because ref Steve Mazzagati stopped the fight prematurely. Velasquez used his superb and sick wrestling skills by taking down Rothwell effortlessly. Velasquez will be the top contender in the Heavyweight division.

As of press time, Heavyweight champ Brock Lesnar pulled out for the UFC 105 due to illness. Lesnar has been out of his training camp for three long weeks and requested to re-schedule his bout against Shane Carwin. Also, the former light heavyweight champion Tito Ortiz will face the other former light heavyweight champion Forrest Griffin as replacement for the injured Mark Coleman. This is the redemption for the two fighters because they both came from a loss.

photo courtesy of UFC