Lyoto Machida and Shogun Rua staredown at UFC 104 press conference (Pic)

SHOGUN will shock the world on Saturday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

look out for the foot sweeps of machida to ruin your night.

Shogun should stop staring at the belt and focus on the guy trying to stop him from taking it.

TaPouT — Totally agree… Shogun will lose shockingly quickly.

This Saturday will be the begining of the end for the DRAGON. SHOGUN the NEW LHW Champ!!!

im not sure if Machida and Shogun can finish each other either! like I said, I want this fight to go to the championship rounds!

I know Machida’s JIts is legit. Hell. my boy PhilQny has grappled with him back when Machida was “boring” and I always remembered how PhilQny RAVED about his grappling game, but I think Shogun’s jits is better then everyone. Shogun out grappled Rogerio who is one of Machida’s Jits coaches. I dont expect Shogun to submit him, but i can see him using jits to get some nice G n P in!

Like I said before, Machida is the favorite for a reason…but I wont be surprised if he loses either. All it takes is 2 seconds of the tai plumb and 1 knee landing flush on the chin, and the fight could turn around in an instant!

I agree that is could turn around in an instant. Thats for sure. I just have to go with Machida. I see him working Rua to a tko victory, but Rua always has a chance.

Exactly.

This fight may make it to the championship rounds, but the longer it goes, the more it will favor Machida. While I expect Shogun to show reasonably well, the stamina question still remains.

Exactly when have you seen Shogun show us anything in the cage? Never. He will be finished in the 2nd round. You believe the UFC hype on this fight, but you know Machida dominates and this is over relatively quickly.

Shogun has done nothing in his UFC career to suggest he will even make it competitive. Stop living in the past. Machida is the future.

Rua in the Championship rounds may get really ugly. Did anyone happen to notice Rua at then end of 3 rounds with Coleman? Both of the those fighters going into the 3rd barely had anything left. I don’t see being able to bounce back in a year and put together five good rounds. Machida is going to counter everytime Rua goes for one of those big looping punches, like he does in every fight. Just as anyone goes offensive with him, boom they get tagged. He has been doing that since he was a child, text book karate tournament striking. MAchida is insanly quick and super confident at striking during that fraction of a second-That is going to be the deal sealer-with Rua’s looping strikes. Straight line is the quickest way to cover distance. I am thinking second round victory for MAchida. Round one feeling out and getting down his timing. Round 2, Ding “LEts Get it On!”, Good Night, God Bless, The Draygon is still da champyon…

This is the biggest fight of Shogun’s life and this kid is BIGTIME. When I say Bigtime, I mean he rises to the occasion in Big fights! I willl be shocked if his cardio isnt in peak form. shogun has known about this fight forever, and Cardio is the easiest thing to correct in mma. All it takes is work. Shogun was a cardio machine in the past, so why cant he do it again, especially now that his legs are healthy?

I shogun was 36 years old, I would think its foolish to expect him to go back to his pride form. But he is a 27 year old kid which to me, means that he is fully capable of becoming better then he was in Pride. I am baffled as to how so many people wrote him off and think he cant come into a fight with great cardio. I honesty believe that their is a direct correlatioon between his weak cardio and his knee problems. No more knee problems should equate to the cardio machine he was in the past. what drives me crazy is when people say he peaked in pride. HE is ONLY 27 years old. YOur fighting Prime isnt til you turn 31. He is stil 4 years away from his fighhting Prime, and people say he is done!

Win or lose, the shogun bandwagon is going to fill up really quick after this fight. He will be impressive and in the future he will beat many of the UFC’s top LHW!…but I REMEMBER ALL THE ONES WHO FLAMED HIM AND WROTE HIM OFF! I got no problems with anyone picking against Shogun. If my life depended on it, I would bet Machida, but I wont be shocked no matter how this fight ends. Both men are more then capable of beating any LHW in the world! I love both fighters so I will be happy no matter what. This is a dream fight for me because no possible outcome would surprise me and no matter how this fight ends, I truly believe that the winner will be THE FANS! on paper there isnt many fights that appeal to me more then this match up! DREAM fight for me and I pray that I get to see Shogun/Anderson in the future!

Read that post before noticing who had wrote it and nodded all the way through, truth John.

thank you sir!

Good stuff John, and I hope you are right that Shogun will be in peak form. I hope Machida is tested in this fight, as I believe there are facets of his overall game we have not seen yet. Stamina issues aside, I believe Shogun will need to gain an advantage early if he is to win. If the first round or two play out as a tactical striking battle, Machida has too clear cut an edge, and likely will have picked Shogun apart. Point being, even if this fight makes it to round 4, we’ll know who is in control no later than round two.

JOHN G is an idiot, shogun bandwagon is not going to fill up after this fight, because he is going to make shogun look like he did to rashad. stop dreaming john, this is a classic mismatch, even rashad evans would beat shogun.

John G, Kudos for not getting into it with this guy. Personally I think Machida is going to finish this in the 2nd round(word to DA MONKEY), but I guess your not allowed your own personal opinion.

DH: thanks buddy! Yeah I try to make an effort to not feed into all the classless crap that goes on around here. THanks for noticing buddy!

Honestly I have no idea who will win the fight. I just pray that both guys are in peak form and the fight doesnt end early. I hope for good judging and a memerable fight. I love both fighters too much to care who wins it!

John G. I hope you didn’t think I was writing of Shogun. He actually is one of my favorite fighters, like I have said before I had expected him to get to the UFC and clean out th3 205 division. You almost always have an intelligent post. I just Rua has not really or barely shown glimmers of his formerself. Him getting back into his Pride form is not just going to happen in one fight. It will be a progression. Unfortunatly for Rua, Machida is near the pinnacle of his mma progress. He finally has gotten comfortable in the cage using karate. His abilties are peak and he has made excellent, ranked fighters look amatuer as of late. I hope like you stated we get the fight of the year out of this, but I just think Rua is going to fall short.

Thanks John for always posting great assesments. Along with NNR and a few others that slip my mind at the moment, I really enjoy coming to this site. I have been here since the UFCMania days and there are still those old timers and educated fans that always make great posts and make me come back day in and day out…

Yep. Maybe that bodes well. Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking. I remain optimistic that it goes past 2 rounds.

he’s not looking in machida’s eyes cause he’s looking at that lhw title..

that title will be his after this weekend..

word!~ i was thinking the same thing ^

I love how people say Shoogun has NO CHANCE! All it takes is 1 second of the Tai clinch, and 1 knee landing Flush on the chin, and the fight could change in an instant! Everyone knows how great Machida is, but I feel that shogun is a WORLD CLASS fighter, and all world class fighters are capable of winning on any given night no matter how outmatched they are on paper. What happens if this fight turns into a wAR? do you really think that the least hit fighter in mma would have an advantage over a battle tested warrior if it turns into a war? I dont! anyone ever see Machida fight for 25 minutes? I havent….but Shogun has gone 20 minutes against world class fighhters in the past and came out with the W.

I wont say with certainty that anyone will ever beat Machida…all Im saying is that a shogun win isnt anywhere near as far fetched as most of you think it would be! Especially in mma!

i like how you say all it takes is one clinch one takedown one flush punch…….you’d think if it was that easy perhaps just maybe sometime in machidas 15 pro fights this would have happened already! machida is 7-0 in the ufc , has never lost a round, and WILL pick rua apart tomorrow night mark my words on this one boys

Why is everyone that is going for Machida a nut-hugger? I am a fan of both men (Machida before he got to the UFC) and was so hoping that Rua was going to come to the UFC and be the fighter he was in Pride, but at the moment he is not. Chuck was his best showing and that is not saying much considering he has lost 3 of 4 before facing Rua and 2 of them were brutal ko’s. Nothing in his last few performances show that he was the dominant fighter of Pride, improved yes, but not the PRide Rua.

How do you figure you can’t dispute the ground game? I am just curious because of the 5 guys considered BJJ men that Rua fought Arona, Babalu, Forrest, Little Nog, NAmkawe(maybe you can throw Santos in there, but I do not think he is on the same level fighting as alot of his other fights)…He has lost 2 of them. I am just trying to think of his fights, so maybe I am off but just trying to go by memory. Then he has only one win by submission, Randelman. MAchida has 2 sub vitories, one of them being a relevant fighter in Sokoudujo.

I know Machida’s chin is largely untested and that is what makes him that much better of a fighter, because it is never there to hit, but Both Rashad and Soku landed a few shots each (and RAshad’s were 2 or 3 big ones on the button) and he was unphased and continued forward. Also everyone speaks of Rua’s Tai Plum, MAchida does train with Anderson who doesn’t exactly lack in the Tai Plum. Machida has amazing knees from outside of clinch and heavy foot sweeps(completely unrivaled). I got Machida winning this one but notbody cares waht I think anyway…

Ok fair enough suppose it’s a mental guard thing. Mauro Ranello said Fedor does it when he bears no bad feeling to his opponent or something along those lines so I thought maybe it’s something similar. I don’t fight so you’re right I wouldn’t know. Must admit though I do think it’s strange not looking your opponent in the eye. It seems kind of unnatural.

zack: exactly…to add to that, Fighters like shoguun and Fedor dont look into their opponents eyes because they believe it exerts unnecessary energy. Fighters like Shogun and fedor believe that it doesnt matter what their opponents do, they are confident in their abilities and focus on what they must do. It has NOTHING to do with respect or Fear…Its clearing their mind. its a focus thing!