Lyoto Machida: Sometimes the strategy doesn't work

newfire — Doc Hamilton said that the difference, in this case, sometimes came down to just two or three things in a given round, in his judgment. I thought Rua won the fight. But I don’t believe the judges were paid off, and I don’t think they’re idiots. Kevin Ioli has an interesting analysis on Yahoo, which gave me a little more perspective.

Shogun shouldn’t have relaxed in the last round, he should have gone for it for decisive win. Championship fight, you gotta expect the last round to decide the fight.

It was a close fight that could of went either way Rua and machida left it to the judges and in a close one there is always going to be critics of the judging. Me and my buds watched it twice yesterday once in slow motion and over all Rua had more points but he had two big rounds of scoring as for Machida 4 out of the 5 of us had Machida winning three rounds and the fifth guy had Rua up 3-2. All in all Rua proved a lot of doubters including myself that he can hang with Machida It’s good to see him back and looking more like his old self personally I would love to see him fight Silva before Silva leaves.

i am still shocked!~

im just glad almost everyone felt shogun won the fight..

and im happy most of the peeps that said shogun would get ‘creamed’ all know what really happend..

it was a clearly a rua victory.. i mean some of the rounds were close, but imo- shougun won every dang round except round 2!~

round 3 was close and i could maybe give machida round 3, just to shut peeps up, but imho- i gave shogun rds 1,3,4,and 5 all 10-9..

all i can say is i am very thankful for this immediate rematch!~

they boo him because he is boring…..just because he finished 2 people in a row doesnt make him exciting

Totally agree with you stinky.I’ve been saying that SHOGUN would shock the world ever since this fight was anounced but unfortunately the only thing that was shocking was that bullsh!t decision. SHOGUN GOT SCREWED!!!

he screwed himself…he won a fight on points and THATS IT! The judges went the other way (which I disagree with) but Shogun has nobody to blame but himself. No killer instinct, no going for broke, NOTHIN"!!! He’s even admitted that he didn’t go in for the kill BECAUSE HIS CORNER TOLD HIM HE WAS WINNING!!! How stupid is that?

“he won a fight on points thats it”-Is that really youre excuse for the bullsh!t decision. SHOGUN was the agrresor, SHOGUN landed the more effective strykes(and more strykes over all),SHOGUN counter kicks shut down the dragon. What did Mashida do nothing but stuff a few takedowns and thats not enough to win a round or fight. The ellusive dragon got hiss a$$ beaten period. Mashida is nothing but a paper champ from now on, SHOGUN GOT SCREWED and should be the real LHW champ as we speak!

sorry mcart!~ but i gotta strongly disagree..

while 99% of the time i would agree with “killer instinct” being needed.. we are talking machida here!~

going in for the kill against machida = nighty night!

shogun stuck with the right plan.. imo-

all the rest who fought machida went “for broke” and all got broken!~ rua took it slow and steady and tamed the dragon..

Here is the point that Dana White and all the fighters made post fight.

Neither guy closed out rounds trying to swing the round. Neither fighter was going all out to win it. Both fighters were content to outpoint the other guy and try to win on the score cards. Lastly, judges are fickle and you can never be 100% sure you will get a decision.

So Machida won. Fair or not, he won. I honestly had 48-47 shogun but Shogun didn’t get screwed, he left it in the hands of judges. If you really want the W you have to get after it. Machida would of had no excuse either but decision went his way. Welcome to the fight world where decisions aren’t always correct.

boys, boys…keep in mind that we agree…Shogun DID win that fight but still has no strap around his waist…Why? Because he left it to the judges. Obviously TaPouT is a little upset over the ordeal but to me its simple. He could have taken the chance and gotten aggressive OR he could stick with the leg kick plan and hope for the best. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to notice who was the better of the 2 but the fact remains that Chida is still wearin’ gold. Like it or not. Stink, I agree that there was a decent chance for Shogun to go nighty night but we’ll never know which is the hardest pill to swallow. Me thinks though that if Rua HAD gone for broke, and started swinging for the hills he would’ve given the judges less doubt no?

also Dana White, who knows the business better than anyone here said he had 1 and 2 as close, 3 to Machida and 4 and 5 to Shogun.

Yes he thought Shogun won but he also thought it was a close fight, unlike the people on here saying 5-0 Shogun, which is silly talk.

good to be arguin’ with the regs today boys…been a while since we’ve had something to discuss

Good to be arguing but I still say SHOGUN got screwed. I hear you when you say that you also think he won but what gets to me is that this decision reminds me of a boxing kind of bullsh!t outcome, and that’s what the UFC,MMA was not sopose to be. Sad night for MMA.

i guess my main point would be, shogun knows machida isn’t going to rush him in the final 20 seconds of each round.. if anything, machida was probably hoping to get rushed so he could do what he does best..

shogun fought more smart then i have ever seen him, and fully deserved the nod after taking at least 3 round[imo-4]..

just to counter some of the machida defense from the fight~

-“it’s all joe rogans fault” -
come on peeps the entire arena instantly booed with the call.

“shogun should have turned it up in the last 20secs of each rd”
why? thats what machida wants. shogun was the aggresor the entire fight.

oh well, i promised myself not to jibberjabber this bullshit decison all day, so i will leave it at that..

haha…I’ve been jabbering on and on too…best to stop now on this one so that I still have the energy to do it again tomorrow

and yeah mc~art! good to see more regulars around.. but were still missing a few..

where the hell is jeremyjack and o damn been lately?

jjack was on today….in fact he’s right above us bro

I have the same ? Where are all the regulars?

ya…ODamn is missed…and what about Alpha, RoB, Kev, and BNF?? Chef is long gone as I imagine AdamG is although BJ does have a fight comin up

Stinky and Mac – I was so excited to celebrate this victory for Rua along with John G and maybe 1 or 2 others. Everyone else said Rua didn’t stand a chance and I’m glad that even though Rua didn’t get the judges nod. . .EVERYONE knows we were right!!!!

I’m big enough to admit when I was wrong…

LOL – Oh yeah Mac, you didn’t think Shogun would win! I’m just so damn used to agreeing with you that I forgot who’s side you were on! lol. . .but that’s big of you to admit. cheers! ;)

mcarthur, thats not the real jeremyjackson, that is the name banit guy, jeremy jackscan..

haglnuts, true man.. not to many peeps gave shogun a chance, let alone the respect he deserved.. you, john, roy, inty, myself and a few others were the only peeps who had rua’s back..

im still glad to see people finally come around though..

yeah, i miss chef’s post too.. he was a regular for a long time, but i think he just got a different job..

kevins been working.

philqny doesn’t post as often..

i don’t know what happened to bnf, alpha, jeremyjackson and o damn.

other guys who havn’t posted in a long time are linx and bw.. anyone remember them? it’s been a while~

Victims of the economy?

Shogun won the fight 4 rds to 1, why he didn’t get the decision is b/c the UFC couldn’t handle changing champ again. sad to see, and it definitely turns me off as a fan when BS like that happens. the UFC has too much control and entertainment “factor” over it to be taken seriously.

SHogun is the best LHW in the world or maybe Anderson Silva is, Machida however has his style and Shogun had the skill to beat it so Machida couldn’t do anything and won’t be able to do anything in a rematch.

I did btw know that SHogun was gonna win. He’s too fast and has too good feel for the standup to fall for that left hand counter.

Jackscan?! WTF!? Phil was around couple weeks back but Chef is long gone…and there’s RoB

glad to hear u guys r wondering where I am!

phil and chef both still pop in time to time, just not as much as they used to.

lol, you never noticed jackscan? he’s been posting for a couple month now..he’s alright, but i don’t know why he copied jj name.. sometimes it seems like he’s trolling, and sometimes it seems like he’s really trying to debate.. im not ever sure?

Stink: Props to you and Buster for being the only guys to stand by my side while defending shogun and predicting him to win….

Shogun is the champion, Machida is just getting an immediate rematch!

i had shogun from day one.

I’m still checking in on you guys as often as I can. Definitely miss chatting/arguing with you cats. Work has just been kickin my behind for, well, over 10 months now. I saw the fights. at the end of the fight, I paid my tab and left before they announced the winner b/c I would’ve sworn that Shogun won. That being said, my weird observation of the evening was when they were talking about each fighter’s strengths and they had Machida listed as “Allusive.” Perhaps someone for the production should’ve, I don’t know, read a book one time in their life.

LOL Chef Daddy “Allusive”.
John G – Hey where’s my props? You know I was in the fox hole with you and Stinky telling everyone the Rua was back! Man, no love! :)

I was saying yesterday like Jeremy posted nobody finished the rounds. To me nobody commited to the fight and more then anything it looked like a full contact sparring match. I realize that you can’t alway go for the kill, but you can put an exclamation mark on your performance. Neither fighter did….

Also, like boxing isn’t each round scored individually? They score a round hand it in then score then next hand it in and so on? With 1 and 2 being so close, machida winning the 3rd and Shogun winning the 4th and 5th, wouldn’t that explain a why MAchida may have won? If that is how they score. IT was a shame the Rua got the “L” but I don’t really think he got the “W” either, same for MAchida….I wish judges would be more willing to put out the draw. It is a shame like I said that either got the “W” or “L” in this fight.

machida drunk piss big time…

war shogun

a bet is a bet and that is very big of you to not hold me too it but i will keep the name if you want or give you double or nothing odds for the next one you choose just let me know what you want. at least we get to see a rematch and i think it will be a even better fight and i am glad shogun showed people he is no joke.thanks for being a good sport.

haha…good sport roy :)

haha, i forgot roy had a bet going too~

poor roymachdanutthugger and ojriskingtrovert, it had to be a bullshit call..

hey roy, remember that other dood that wanted to bet?
he said “if machida doesnt completely dominate” he wouldn’t post ever? i wonder if we’ll see him again.. probably, lol..

LESTAT, I agree…I WATCHED that fight AGAIN, PAUSED at times and watched certain exchanges over again, and it was extremely close, every round. I have Machida winning the 1st rnd, a complete toss up the 2nd and Machida winning the 3rd rnd, 4th rnd goes to shogun, and again a close 5th rnd, but I gave it to Machida. Listening to Rogan & Goldie going WOW’ everytime Shogun threw a kick was totally misleading, beause not much was said when Machida threw combos! Goldie kept saying Shogun won every round, while Rogan just said "I don’t know." Machida contected with more head shots and almost as many kicks, but almost nothing was said when he connected… WATCHING the fight CLOSELY… I can see why Machida got the nod… Judges just don’t give as much credit to kicks as they do punches, and Machida out punched Shogun. Machida slipped punches and got grazed a few times… but Rogan and Goldie were still going ‘WOW’…lol. C’mon!!!

Yea man I hear ya , the worst is when Machida connected with I think his hardest straight left of the fight ( you can see the pic in the ufc website) and Rogan yelled BODY KICK FROM SHOGUN! at that point I just threw my hands in the air lol .

I mean almost every time shogun kicked he got countered, so this whole thing about being a robbery is just blown way out of proportion. I think that people were so shocked( including myself) that Machida was actually getting hit that it had a big influence on their reaction to the decision, especially because by the 4th round Lyoto didn’t do much damage besides a couple of knees I think, and that’s why a lot of people believed that shogun had it in the bag for sure .

Ok double or nothing it is =)

I tell you what though. the old Shogun didn’t show up for this fight, this was a whole new kind of fighter. I think Machida brought up the best in him.

The rematch will be epic.

i agree it will be a great fight and who knows who will win they are both great fighters. so next bet i will keep the name for 2 months and you only put up 1 month, sound good?

Yep. we got a deal lol

NNR = truth ^^

The problem NNR is some of that is probably what cost him the decision. Since there were no takedowns to skew the decision they probably awarded more points to Machida because he was trying to finish the fight, ie. aiming shots at the head. At no point did Shogun look to end the fight the entire time he was looked like he was just trying to win a decision, which in my opinion is not the way to win a championship.

what are you talking about? shogun hit him in the head just as much if not more than machida did. and when did machida try to end the fight? cause he was no where near ending it.

well put!~

I agree the whole fight it looked like shogun was just trying to survive and win a decision, while machida was the agressor, all shogun did was land more kicks, punches, body shots was all machida. it was a close fight, but its easy to see why machida was given the first 3 rounds, just watch it with the sound off without rogans commentary. people complained when forrest was given a decision and all he did was leg kicks, even though page hit him with more body , and head shots, just goes to show no matter what you cant please them all. shogun will get his rematch but dont be suprised if machida makes the adjustments and its not so close this time. HE has much better training partners than shogun like anderson silva. so just hold your horses shogun nutthuggers

when was machida the agressor? shogun was moving forward.

you say
all shogun did was land more kicks, punches, body shots

and equal or more head shots as well so what more did he need?

 shogun will get his rematch but dont be suprised if machida makes the adjustments and its not so close this time

you think shogun will not make adjustments as well?you right next time it probally won’t be as close shogun will end it.

forgot to put the period, roy. I said shogun landed more kicks, but machida landed more punches , body shots, shots to the face, completely dominated the hand fighting

, completely dominated the hand fighting

lol his face dosn’t think so. no shogun out struck him and you thoguht it would be a one sided beat down at least you where wrong about that.

curly are you smoking crack? machida the aggressor??? he landed 40 something strikes in 5 rounds…you call that trying to end a fight??

and you say rogan was biased??? shogun landed twice as many strikes so of course you’re gonna hear rogan say “nice shot by shogun” twice as many times as he did about machida…cause machida hardly landed anything..

dude seriously…spit the machida urine out…they say urine is sterile, but obviously machida’s is indeed toxic and induces delusional thought and you’re living proof

machida never the aggressor..if he was it was for like 2 seconds then shogun immediately pushed the pace right back on him. Shogun won. like i said he would from the second this fight was announced. he will beat him in the rematch also. WAR SHOGUN

Yeah you are right Machida never even hit Shogun I mean its not like he was punching him in the face and backing him up into the cage at the end of round 3 at all. He did that a few different times in the fight. Shogun rarely used his fists it was all leg kick counters.

Look at the fight Metric count…If I remember Rua out scrored to the head by 4, and MAchida outscored to the body by 15 or something. MAchida won on points to the head and body combined (by 8 or 9). The numbers are there. The numbers are skewed because Rua landed like 20 more leg kicks the Chida. The leg kicks are what make the numbers look so unbalanced. Like I said it was a shame for either of these fighters to get the W or the L.
 Also I asked earlier and nobody answered, but isn’t each round scored indivually? So basically if the judges gave round 1 and 2 which are extrememly close to MAchida (meaning they handed in the score at the end of each round), round 3 was clearly MAchida, Then round 4 and 5 were clearly Shougun, it would have not mattered at that point, correct? It would not have mattered if he landed 30 more punches in the last 2 rounds, he already lost the first 3, correct, the scores had already been logged in? The only way to change that would have been to get 2, 10-8 rounds or sub,ko/tko, correct?

A.T look at the first 3 rounds, they were close but machida won them, that why it wasnt a split decision, but U.D, yeah shogun landed more overall strikes, but that was mainly in the last two rounds, which he problably won so stats are misleading, machida won 3-2 rounds

i am a machida fan..not a band wagoner..but i could tell shogun won..i am also a fan of the old shogun..and that is who showed up..so i feel bad for his lose that was actually a win..which is f*cked up..cecil peoples SHOULD be banned from judging forever and a day!!

Good Post MMAcrossfire!! Shogun definitely fought a good fight and landed damaging shots to the body/legs of Machida but he didn’t do enough to win – on the other hand Machida countered really well, alot of straight punches to Shogun face/head, good knees to the body, kick to rigs and one good head kick, even attempted a few trips
and stuffed all take down. People look at it differently because Machida has a unique Karate style and he keep moving backward and people thought he was afraid of the exchange…..

Round 1 was very close but I had the same

i had the same

I thought Shogun won all 5 rounds personally. But even if he only won 3 or 4 rounds, he still won. The CSAC is a fucking joke and I cringe everytime I hear a ufc fight is in CA……….

Ojr,

I seriously, seriously, don’t think you can force a 10-10 round. If I’m wrong I’m sorry, but I’m 99% sure, winner of round gets 10 points, with his opponent scoring 9 or less, is said before every televised card.

Also, I feel 10-10 would cause more harm then help, as I think that allows for too many draws, especially in 3 rounders when 1 is too close and the fighters split the other 2.

daniel, while i don’t agree with rounds being scored 10-10, i know for sure, that judges are allowed to score the round even.. they just never do.

imo- the 10 point system needs to be gone..

Daniel….10-10 is allowed and should be used…it just isn’t.

There is a “ten point must system”, and a “ten point system”…the “must” system is what you are thinking of.

I’m not sure if it would cause more draws or not, but I think if Saturday’s fight did end up a draw, half the pissed off people wouldn’t be so pissed off. Whether it ends in a draw or not doesn’t change anything about the actual fight, so why would it matter? JMHO

Are you kidding me?, the word and everything will easily bolster a rematch. People will wanna see who goes for the kill and who will be the champ. And they’ll stack the card up, with the delay maybe the co-main event could be Rashad vs. Rampage. I am telling you this is a must see rematch, both fighters have a lot to prove and a lot to loose

i think the rematch will be even bigger

everyone who watched the first fight will watch the second fight period…2 guys who can’t speak English who fought a lackluster 5 round decision WILL NOT be breaking any records dude. Trust me.

there were only 16,000 people there and I guarentee they didn’t do even close to a million PPV’s…small potatoes in comparison to other UFC events

i don’t know about breaking reocrs i dout that, but i think it will be bigger than the first and better. i didn’t think it was lackluster it was to great fighters in a chess match i was excited the whole fight.

That and imagine how much money they would stand to lose if they were caught paying judges.

I was excited the whole fight too and then it ended and I felt like it should still be on…I felt cheated

mistake…I meant to say that everything I’ve seen had Rua winning…not Chida

Okay…I read it four times while thinking “am I reading this right…” lol.

intro is right!~

machida fully looked defeated at the end of the fight.. even when ed soars told him to cheer like he won the fight, machida put his arms up lackluster with a look of dissapointment on his face..

the difference is that Forrest’s leg kicks led to rampage not being able to put wait on his knee. Which led to a completely dominant round for forrest.

I don’t know if you can totally trust the stats boys. I think that they counted many of the leg kicks that Rua threw even though they were checked or just grazed with the toe. I would take a toe swipe to counter with a straight punch any day.

oh, and as far as the busted lip goes. I got a head butt from my nephew the other day and it split me open. The kid’s 2 years old. It doesn’t take much to split a lip open. I’m not siding one way or the other (I did have Machida winning, but wouldn’t have been suprised to see it go to Shogun). It was a closer fight then all these comments would indicate, or even the fightmetric data that I pointed out above. I personally can’t wait for the rematch.

Hey, if you want to say that Machida won…fair enough. My problem is with this “Rogan’s commentary” reason for people thinking that Shogun won. You guys need to give people more credit, because I can say personally that I don’t need to listen to Rogan or anyone else to see that Shogun beat Machida up with kicks for 25 minutes….sound or no sound, I saw it with my own eyes.

i didn’t think rogan was that biased, he kept trying to say the judges might see it different and machida barely landed anything worth him commenting on.

yeah, everyone in the crowd immediately started booing.. we didn’t have rogan commentary..

also when i got home and rewatched the fight, i could barley hear what rogan was saying cause all i could hear was those nasty kicks!~

if u think u could hear those kicks loud on tv, imagine how cracking they were live in the arena..

Yeh except the loud ones are the ones where its slipped and he clips machida with his foot/toe – it makes a massive slapping sound

He didnt get half as many direct hits with those as people think.

the cheering/booing was pretty indicative of how the fight was going too..rounds 1 + 2 were either way, 3 to machia, 4 and 5 to rua..which leave the last impression on the croud. They saw shogun dominating 4 and 5 and the decision go to chida..i can see why they’d boo, especially as we all know people love to cheer the underdog

did u see machida’s torso and legs? trust me shogun was connecting hard!~

Oh yeh he definatly got some good ones in there, but they weren’t all “blistering” leg kicks, a lot grazed or whiffed completly – machida got quite a few short punches in off the kicks too (nothing big but it counts in the judges eyes i guess)

same scenario as Page/Forest…just the opposite result

not quite but did you think forrest won? I scored forest 3-2

again…too close to call…I will say that I don’t think Forest did enough to warrent the championship…very grey area

yeah, id probly have to rewatch the page/forrest fight to make comparisons of the two.

Mac and OJR,

Sorry buds but got to TOTALLY disagree!

He won the fight plain and simple. Theres no kinda won sorta won won by points blah blah blah.

He did more than machida. he WON plain and simple!

I know SoCal but he didn’t…otherwise he’d be wearin gold bro! Its hard to deal with as a sportman knowing that the best man doesn’t always win…Thats the fight game I guess. ;)

SoCal-

We will agree to disagree. It was very close but no robbery.

For the first 3 rounds, just about every time Rua went for a body kick Machida punched him in the face with a straight left, which more often than not sent Rua back a few paces. I watched the fight over (without the one-sided commentary) and honestly saw more effective landed techniques from Machida in the first 3 rounds. Round 4 I saw fairly even exchanges but the unanswered leg kicks give that round to Rua, and round 5 Rua was landing more effective techniques. I gave it first 3 rounds Machida, last 2 Rua. 48-47.
My biggest problem with Machida’s game was, why no leg kicks? He’s got great kicks and needed to use them. Was he afraid of being taken to the ground? He’s a BJJ black belt as well. He needed to use leg kicks.

I don’t think the karate style lends itself well to short leg kicks in an mma enviroment (unlike muay thai)

At least it seems that way to me

yep

I couldnt agree more. Im going with Machida again lol

well if 90% of the people watrching say he won, i will take that over 3 old judges that probally don’t watch mma.

there job is watching mma. lol? and judging it

yeah and they did so a great job at it, just like the hamill fight.

not like the hamill fight but it was a close fight.

See it’s rare that judges are wrong but in this case they were. I bet the have a guilty conscience about this for a while. Cuz if most people (fighters, trainers, fans, mma gurus, your neighbor, whatever) think Shogun won then that alone says something about the judging because it was more than a close call but an unfair and biased one.

mma gurus? neighbors? you’re just as delusional as the last guy. How can you speak for other people? explain why it was a biased unfair call. I’d like you give reasoning unlike your last silly message of the judges being down on themselves.

Biased because they just gave it to the champ by default simply because they felt Rua didn’t push the pace enough or that leg kicks and body kicks do not warrant a championship. I guess they wanted to see him use his hands more even though he caught Machida at least 2-3 times.

Rua was the one trying to push the pace while Lyoto even more than elusive was sluggish and basically taken out of his game. He didn’t look good at all. That was without a doubt his worst fight yet. Rua was the more technical and methodical and even Lyoto admitted that his gameplan was not up to par and that is because Rua’s took him out of his element.

I just watched the fight again and saw that Machida did better than it looked live while paying attention to the details. It was close but still Rua outdid him plain and simple. You just can’t deny that Rua was the better fighter that night. Denying that Rua was the lesser fighter is a state of denial.

its a state of opinion. but I understand your opinion and am glad that you gave it a second look. I see that it was an amazingly close match but saying shogun dominated is also a false statement. I feel that it will all be settled in the rematch. after watching the fight 3 times(all 75 minutes of glory) I will stand by my claim of rounds 1-3 going to machida. and the last 2 going to shogun but will not try to argue you out of your opinion. I just want people to respect both fighters and recognize that it was a close match to the point it could have gone either way but to say the entire match was controversial and to boo the winner (still champion) is distasteful. I’m mainly angry at the way the media is portraying it on these mma sites. oh well..

Yeah I actually had to rewind the fight back and forth to see the perspective on from both sides. I’ll admit it was kind of a boring fight but when you have two guys with skills on the same level they basically even out. Both fighters were reluctant one way or another to engage fully. I’m sure the rematch will be better and hopefully we see them both at their best.

Dolfan you compustrike stats you’ve been looking for are out