Lyoto Machida and Shogun Rua Talk UFC 113 Rematch

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In anticipation of their light heavyweight championship rematch at UFC 113, both champion Lyoto Machida and challenger Mauricio “Shogun” Rua spoke with reporters on a variety of topics.

One question that has been debated-to-death is whether Machida’s victory was well-deserved, or a catastrophic failure on the part of the judges.

Shogun:  ”Well, I think it was really a controversial fight where some people thought that I won the fight, some people thought that I lost the fight and the biggest proof that this was a controversial fight was the fact that a rematch was set up immediately.

But this is all in the past for me right now. And what gives me comfort is the fact that I’m having another shot at a title and I’ll fight for the world championship again.”

Another question brought up from the Machida vs. Rua aftermath has been whether the champion should keep the title if he is not definitively beaten.

Machida:  ”The way I feel is I think it has to be fair. I don’t believe that the challenger has to come in and really take the belt from the champion. I think it needs to be judged the way it is, round for round. And I think it needs to be judged fairly.”

Being that Machida and Shogun have fought previously, and went a full five rounds, the question was raised whether that creates a familiarity that can be used as an advantage.

Machida:  ”Well I believe every fight’s a different fight. Every fight’s a new experience. But I do think that both for myself and for Shogun, being in there with each other for 25 minutes, I’m sure that he noticed some things about me and I noticed some things about him. And that’s what’s the great thing about the rematch is, we’re both a lot more familiar with each other than we were the first time we met. So I think it just makes all that much greater for a better fight this time around.”

From Shogun’s success fighting in the PRIDE organization, many were expecting big things from the Brazilian when he signed with the UFC. 

However, after a defeat at the hands of Forrest Griffin in his debut and a rather unimpressive victory over Mark Coleman, some thought Shogun was over-hyped.

But after overhauling his training methods, Shogun came back to knock out Chuck Liddell and battle Machida for five rounds.

Shogun:  ”When I fought Mark Coleman, I was in good shape. I was well trained. But, some things were lacking. I didn’t really have a good notion of space inside the Octagon because I had never trained in a cage before. I was training in a ring. And I think that was the biggest difference that affected my performance in the fight because it was a totally different ballgame.

“Now, I have a better notion of space, and better Octagon control because I have an Octagon with the UFC size in my academy, and I think that changes a lot of my training and my preparation. I think that was likely the biggest mistake I did when I first came into the UFC, to not have an actual fighting space to train that was like the one I would use in my fight in the UFC.

“I corrected that, so I think that gave me a big advantage and improved my game a lot. And now, I think I’m prepared to fight in the UFC, and that’s the biggest difference.”

With Machida’s patented karate style, many have called on Shogun to try to take the fight to the ground, a notion Shogun believes sounds easier than it really is.

Shogun:  ”Many people think that taking the fight to the ground and trying to work in the ground with Machida would be a good way to end the fight, but that’s a very hard thing to say because Lyoto is also very good player on the ground, and he’s trained a lot of Sumo and a lot of wrestling. It’s very hard to get him down on the ground.

“When you prepare for a fight, you have to focus on the worst kind of situation you can go through a fight, and fighting Machida, the toughest situation you can find is fighting him standing up. So, I try to prepare for the worst and whatever comes to the fight, he’ll be prepared anyway.”