Lyoto Machida Vs Mauricio 'Shogun' Rua UFC 113: Preview and Prediction

Main Event

  Lyoto Machida  (c) (16-0-0)
vs.
  Mauricio Rua (18-4-0)

Fighting Styles
Machida – BJJ/Machida Karate/Shotokan
Rua – BJJ/Muay Thai

The light-heavyweight belt on the line in Montreal

Fighting Styles
Machida – BJJ/Machida Karate/Shotokan
Rua – BJJ/Muay Thai

The light-heavyweight belt on the line in Montreal…

*THIS IS JUST THE PREDICTIONS FOR THE MAIN EVENT, CLICK BELOW FOR ALL FIGHT PREVIEWS*

UFC 113 - Machida vs Shogun 2 - Preview and Predictions

Machida				Rua
16 matches	16 W	0 L		22 matches	18 W	4 L
By knockout	5	0		By knockout	15	1
By submission	2	0		By submission	1	2
By decision	9	0		By decision	2	1

Lyoto ‘The Dragon’ Machida  

Machida may be the champion in the Light Heavyweight division, and by no means am I knocking him as a fighter, because he has victories over Rashad Evans, Thiago Silva, Tito Ortiz, Rich Franklin, BJ Penn, Stephan Bonnar and … ugh, cough cough, Mauricio ‘Shogun’ Rua at UFC 104.

Can you taste the bitterness? I hope I am not alone.

With Machida winning a unanimous decision victory over Shogun, 48-47 from all three judges, with one stating that Machida, “landed the more damaging strikes throughout the fight,” and was the more “effective aggressor,” it resulted in controversy.

Many viewers and prominent MMA personalities (including Dana White) felt that Shogun had won the fight hands down.

This prompted the rematch in Montreal on May 8th (seven months after the fight) due to an injured Machida suffered during the fight.

Depending on how you view it, you have your own opinion of that fight but I know Shogun won.

Prior to that fight, Machida won the Light-Heavyweight Championship from Rashad in convincing fashion when Machida scored an early knockdown in the first-round and Evans struggled to make any progress.

In the second-round,  when Machida unleashed a flurry of accurate punches rendering Evans unconscious before hitting the canvas.

It earned, "The Dragon," knockout-of-the-night, and gave Machida back-to-back honours, after scoring several trips and knockdowns in a previous fight against Thiago Silva.

Machida managed to knock out Silva in the final second of the first round.

All three fighters (Rua, Rashad and Silva,) are extremely skilled and without a doubt better fighters than Tito Ortiz, but it must be noted Machida also has a unanimous decision over Tito at UFC 84.

Machida is undefeated in his MMA career at 16-0 with half of his fights coming in the UFC, and as hard as he’ll be trying to retain the Light Heavyweight Championship, and prove to everyone he can beat Rua and stay undefeated—sometimes the deck is stacked against you and Machida will have to beat the odds.

I hope for viewers, the fighters, the UFC, the judges and everyone involved that this fight can be scored truthfully and if it in fact does go to the judges card, that we see a fair decision rendered.

Mauricio ‘Shogun’ Rua 

Rua should be the champion. He knows it, you know it and Dana White knows it.

In fact, in post-fight interviews back at UFC 104 Quinton Jackson, Rickson Gracie, Royce Gracie, Randy Couture, Thiago Silva, Jon Jones, Wanderlei Silva, Vitor Belfort, Antonio Silva, and Rashad Evans all said they thought Rua won.

Heck, even Dana said Machida was outscored in the Firsst, Fourth and Fifth rounds, hence the rematch.

The thing is, he’s not the champ and will have to beat Machida, which will be just as tough mentally as it will physically.

He’s already beat him once by everyone's opinion, but lost on the scorecard, so he knows he can do what it takes to beat Machida but doesn’t know if it’s enough.

The question will be if the judges see it the same way as the rest of the world or if more questions will headline about the shadiness of mixed martial arts judges.

Rua was the winner of the PRIDE Fighting Championship’s 2005 Middleweight (205 lbs) Grand Prix and holds notable wins over Chuck Liddell, Quinton “Rampage” Jackson, Alistair Overeem (twice,) Ricardo Arona and Antonio Rogerio Nogueira.

Rua’s four losses have come to extremely notable fights in Forrest Griffin (in 2007,) Mark Coleman (in 2006,) Renato “Babalu” Sobral (in 2003) and most recently Machida.

The loss to Mark Coleman is crossed-off in my mind when Rua beat Coleman in the rematch back at UFC 93 via TKO earning him knockout honours.

The loss to Forrest came in his UFC debut which can overwhelm a fighter and the loss to ‘Babalu’ was controversial and was Rua’s fifth fight of his career (now much more experienced with 22 under his belt.)

"Babalu" Sobral was fighting for nearly two minutes adjusting a guillotine choke, but Rua was resisting and didn’t taped out but the referee called the match.

Rua’s corner protested but it was to no avail.

To make a long story short, if things played out just a touch differently, Rua could be 21-1 (with a loss to Forrest) and hold the belt.

Machida would be 15-1 and I assume, this fight would still be happening, but the champion defending his belt would actually be the real champ and not a champ who in my eyes was handed the belt in a loss which makes him a chump.

Unfortunately, for Rua and his fans, that’s why fights are fought thought but when you take something away from someone they so rightly deserve—you’re going to get what’s coming.

TheCoach’s Pick: RUA via Unanimous Decision