I have to say I am proud of myself-- I called every fight correctly....
However- Rua won that fucking fight. Im sorry-- I dont want to hear this horseshit about "knocking out" the champ to beat the champ.
Bottom line is this-- Rua won at the very least two thirds of the rounds and deserved to be crowned the new champ.
Absolute and total bullshit that he lost--especially when considering that he didn't even get a split decision on the judges score cards-- thats how you know the fix was in.
I have to admit it-- Hedge and a lot of you other guys had it nailed on the head. Rua was very very impressive. If reality meant anything, Rua would be the new king at 205, no doubt about it.
Props to Joe Daddy for putting in a good effort.
And much love for Rumble-- One of my favorite guys in the sport today!
I second. The idea that you have to knock out the champ is fucking retarded. You win, you win. It is disrespectful to all the hard work the fighters put in to require them to go behind what is ask of them, to win the fight.
I had read that Shogun was tailoring his strategy to Machida and that gave me a lot of faith in Shogun, as I previously mentioned here. I knew that he was at least thinking about his strategy. A lot of fighters have one strategy that they apply to all their fights. Using that kind of thinking to fight someone like Machida is a mistake. What happens is that, Machida knows you but you don't know him, and trust me, he will take advantage of that.
This is how I would have scored the fight
Round One and Two for Shogun
Round Three, close but leaning towards Machida
Round Four, close but leaning towards Rua
Round Five, Rua
In my opinion, even if you give the fourth round to Machida, he still soundly loses three out of five rounds.
