UFC 104 Machida vs Shogun Controversy

I've let some time pass. I've even had a massage because I was so stressed out about last night's decision between Lyoto Machida and Shogun Rua. Okay, so maybe that's not why I had my monthly massage but I did think about it during my aromatherapy. 

I watched the same fight everyone else did. Mind you my seats were in front of a tv. I had perfect viewing pleasure - no toddlers or drunks in my way. Sure, I picked Shogun in my UFC Fantasy picks, but after watching all 5 rounds I thought for sure clear the judges would also vote unanimously for Shogun as the winner. The new Light Heavyweight champion, the first person to defeat Lyoto Machida. I just got up to get more guacamole as they started to read the judges scores. Before the fresh green spicy goop hit my plate Bruce Buffer announced that all three judges scored the contest for Machida, the winner by unanimous decision and "still the UFC Light Heavyweight Champion". You could hear everyone's jaw hit the floor in my living room in absolute shock. 

There was a flurry of internet activity from people like me calling bullsh!t. Throw the challenge flag! Open the ballot box! I demand a recount! There was NO way it could have gone that way.  Fighters and journalists took to twitter also saying they disagreed with the judges. Even Dana White expressed his dissatisfaction with the judges decision during the post fight press conference.

As it grew later in the evening and into the early morning, some people started calming down a bit. Then people started saying things like "this is why you never leave it up to the judges."  Even I made a very conscious effort to NEVER disagree with judge's decisions in a public forum. Sure, I've thought it many times. But I'd NEVER say so on my site. I thought doing so would be disrespectful. But I've been giving it a lot of thought. What are the judges for if not to render a decision on the outcome of a bout that is so evenly matched as Shogun Rua and Lyoto Machida? Isn't that what they're expected to do? Their job is to judge who was 'better' in these areas: Clean Strikes, Effective Grappling, Octagon Control and Effective Aggressiveness. So, why should it be that dangerous for a fight to go the distance? Why not leave it up to the judges? Not every fight is going to end in a submission or knockout. As much as we fans would like for it to be that way, it's not.

I certainly understand the concept of fighters wanting to control their own destiny. And it's such a great motivational speech to hear your coach say "don't leave it in the hands of the judges" or "don't rely on someone else to give you the win". However, the time we need judges reliable judges the most is in title fights like Shogun VS Machida. In fights that pit two very evenly matched fighters against each other. Fights that are determined by the closest of margins and the slightest details. We can't expect title fights to always end by submission or KO / TKO, and do we really want them to? Isn't it the goal of an organization to pit two amazing fighters against each other such that they fully test each others arsenal of skills?

Sure this was a close fight, and judges have a view that we the public really don't have. Also, all we know about their criteria are the basic areas we're told about by Mike Goldberg before each event. However, Dana White has always said that the reason MMA will become so popular across the globe is because fighting is something that everyone understands, regardless of nationality or language spoken. Unfortunately for Shogun, last night fighting was not something everyone understood, because those judges saw something drastically different over five rounds than the majority of the crowd and those of us watching at home.

Oh, and this talk about 'taking a belt from the champion'... I've given that some thought as well! How does that make sense? It's like implying that the defending champ doesn't have to do as much to win.It's like saying that beating the defending Super Bowl Champs by only one point isn't winning 'by enough'. A win is a win, even if you're the challenger and it's by a razor thin margin. Both fighters should walk into the cage with the same blank slate and not a +1 point for the reigning champion. 

All I ask is that the judges and the athletic commission give the fans and the sport what we want. That's the ability for a fight to be judged in an educated and consistent manner. Many more of these questionable decisions will start to make us lose credibility as a sport.

This is just my personal opinion. I know some of my friends (all of which I highly respect) will have a different opinion and I welcome the discussion. If you agree or disagree, feel free to leave me a comment, email or send me a message on Twitter!

MMAHotStuff on Twitter - Follow me

If you missed the fights I think you can find them here... UFC MAIN EVENT

Having said all of that, I'm looking forward to the rematch. 

Want to know who had more strikes/kicks? Go here: THIS SAYS IT ALL

Comments

[Travis Carr]

I disagree with the part about not taking the belt away from the champion. I think it is the proper thing to do. If a runner in baseball hits the bag the same time as the first basemen catches the ball the tie goes to the runner. If a receiver and a defensive back both catch the ball in the endzone it goes to the receiver. If you dont clearly beat the champion and it comes down to possibly a tie the champion should and will win.

[Michael M.]

This is just ridiculous, I just don't see how they could give it to Machida. No octagon control, no aggression, he was just waiting for the counter. He had one flair but didn't do much damage.
I don't understand, i'd like to hear the point of view of a Machida fan (I'm no Rua fan but I think even Machida fans were surprised.) His own corner was telling him he had to go score points.
This is a robbery

[Wesley]

The Machida – Rua fight serves to highlight a huge flaw in fighting, be it MMA or boxing. The problem is the disgust that virtually everyone has for draws/ties---which is what that fight was. The judges saw a "drastically"?! different fight? Really?! I don't think so. Either could have been called winner or loser because both were so close to being either; that is: the fight was a draw. A draw is supposed to be the result/decision when the fight is so close that determining a winner or loser cannot reasonably be done due to the parity; that’s why we have draws even though they’re used about as often as Halley’s comet blows by. The reality is that some fights, even highly anticipated fights such as Machida v Shogun, are to our chagrin, ties. However, that should not mean that we should declare a winner anyway; because we so much hate draws!
Also, once we allow personal bias into the equation, problems, namely, distortions begin. (The author admits to betting on Rua.) While Shogun's aggressiveness was commendable and he put a nice red blotch on Machida's ribs and annoyed Lyoto with small kicks to the legs, that does not translate into a win. And, though Machida had better power strikes and combinations, neither did he best Rua. Unfortunately and as disappointing as it is to those of us who anticipated a great fight, he truth is that neither fighter really did much in the way of damage to his opponent. Both were far too tentative.
The perception that Shogun “kicked Machida’s @$$” (hardly) seems largely due to Machida’s sub-par (for him) performance. The fight screamed DRAW but given everyone's abhorrence to a tie even though that's the real outcome, you get what we have here: a goofy decision by the judges. Those contending that Shogun “beat” Machida and those claiming Machida beat Shogun are both wrong. To avoid this kind of bull dung in the future, we should collectively be more tolerant of fights that are draws and allow them to be decided as such or be prepared for more silly decisions as we, by prevailing sentiment, pressure judges into calling a winner when one simply did not prevail in a contest.

[Gold]

THIS WAS THE WORST SCORE BY ANY JUDGE I HAVE EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE.....Bull...t

[Jack Magnum]

From what I've heard the reason Machida won was percentages. Although he got hit a lot, he hit almost every kick and punch he threw at shogun. If you remember the fight Shogun did hit him a lot but if you also remember Machida dodged a lot of those kicks. As far as aggressiveness goes Shogun was actually just playing it safe. He just stood away and threw kicks. The only times they almost started brawling is when Machida would go in and try to make something happen.

[twitter.com/NoLeftTurn]

I agree with you 100% especially on the part about 'taking a belt from the champion'. Shogun pushed forward and fought to win and take the belt. Waiting to counter doesn't score points in the 'octagon control' category does it? This is comparable to Anderson Silva's last couple of title defenses, but at least he decisively came out on top. Just because you're the champ, doesn't mean you get leniency on the score cards.

Just today, I happened to be watching Dream 12 and was reminded on Japan's rule of judging the whole fight rather that by rounds. Shogun would have won by that rule alone. Do you think the UFC (or the US, in general) would benefit from that type of "scoring" system?

[Kenneth]

I just re-watched the fight again and caught many things I missed the first time. Yes Shogun did land many powerful leg and some body kicks, but Machida returned with counter-punches to the face in many of the exchanges (not to mention great knees).

Now onto the biased commentating...Rogan was driving me insane with his bias in favor of Shogun. Machida would land a straight left to Shogun's head and Shogun would land a counter body/leg kick. However, Rogan never gave credit to Machida for his punches, but rather to Shogun.. "Shogun with ANOTHER body kick!" For those of you doubting what I'm saying, I recommend you to go watch the fight again, with the sound off.

I believe Rogan's commentating skewed the way that people viewed the fight. I thought that this fight was extremely close, but Rogan's commentating convinced the audience that it was a one-sided fight for Shogun.

Feel free to give me your input.

[Leo]

That seems to be the unspoken rule. That you need to "take away" the belt from the champion. But I was so disappointed in Machida last night that I thought he deserved to lose the belt. In my opinion he didn't do enough to hold on to his belt. At the same time I can't help but think that Shogun's undoing came at the end of the fight. I hate to say it but he probably could have helped sell his performance if he would have finished that fight with a flurry rather then backing off at the end.

I also wonder if we are a victim of the views of the commentators. I mean they can ingrain things into our heads by their insistent and constant barrage of opinions as the fight unfolds. In this case I do think their opinions were spot on. But apparently the judges did not see it the same way. That is unfortunate because the damage Shogun did to Machida's legs seemed very obvious. It completely disabled Machida's attack. Somehow the judges bought into Machida pretending to shrug off those blows to his legs. I don't know what criteria the judges are using to evaluate the fight, but one thing seemed apparent. Shogun was the better fighter that night. You could see the disappointment and disbelief in his face. At the least he definitely deserves a rematch.

[Ivan]

After reading what Jack Magnum says, I start to see how that is true. Shogun never really pushed forward - he just waited and threw kicks from far away. Machida was the one going in - for about 2-3 times. Also, he did avoid many Shogun's kicks.

Well, but I also agree with what Wesley said - it could very much be a DRAW.

[bobby]

I completely agree with your points mma hotstuff.
You know a lot for a girl. Please educate the
Other women out there! You can start with my girlfriend
Can I give you her contact information?
She bitched the whole time the fights were on.
We just wanted her to leave so we could
Watch in peace.if she loved and understood
The sport like you I might actually marry
The crazy girl.

[Randy]

It was cleary Machida's victory. I can see why you guys think that Shogun should have won, but you don't seem to understand how a title fight works. The title holder needs to be evidently beaten. We've seen this with Evans, and also with Griffin. The challenger went in and clearly beat them, no question. Shogun managed a great performance against Machida, much better than anybody before him, however it wasn't a victory fight. If this was three rounds and not a title fight, the score would have been very close and probably gone to Shogun, and we all would have walked away not caring as much. But there's a level of victory to a title fight and a tie goes to the dealer.

[Ian]

I've watched the fight three times and hands down Shogun won AT LEAST three of those rounds. I dont know what fight the people who say Shogun never really pushed forward were watching. I cannot believe the judges decision, but I really cant believe some people agree with them. Watch the fight one more time. I know that Im goin to...Im still pissed...

[ash]

Some really Good points there. Machida Did Give more variety to the fight like punches,knees,dodges. compaired to Rua just kickin the mid and legs. Machida did get inside a few times and try to work it and scored big there i guess. when Rua got inside he backed off fast with a push elbow.
over all rua didnot do enough for the belt and played a safe game.

[mario]

I think a lot of people who thought Shogun won "outright", only really concentrated to the ending minute of each round. Including Dana. But the judgeds have better memories than the average viewer, and take the whole round into consideration, and see a lot more strikes than what the commentators mention. In fact, a couple of times the commentators only said "oooowww!", without clarifying what happened - because they themselves really didn't see who got truly hit in the exchange.

[an]

I just don't get why people saying that this is not a good fight. I think this is one of the best title fight that I haven't seen for a while, it is very technical. I rather see fight like this than a quick lucky KO. I personally think Rua should have won the fight, and I would pay big buck to see Rua vs Anderson fight, and that would make an awesome fight.

[thiag_b]

if that judges were that good, why was it a UNANIMOUS decision when it was so open-ended?

and explain this:
http://fightmetric.com/fights/Machida-Shogun.html

[z]

LOL, yeah. I think if you can't tell who won, you should at least give a draw or a split decision. WTF is up with the U/D. That was B.S. Machida era my ass

[Miguel Espinal]

Sighs. I was NOT in either contenders favor when coming in to watching this fight. I Viewed it three times on my own no distractions. At first i would go ahead and agree that Shogun had the fight in the bag, but then I re-evaluted the scoring system.
I went ahead and watched it a 2nd and 3rd time while keeping score for myself. i counted clean point scoring hits(BTW Leg kicks do NOT score more than HALF a full point). After careful evaluation I received these results:
(in order of round)
Machida - 6,7,19,3,4 equaling 41 WITH leg kicks (he threw 3 i gave him a single point).
Shogun - 6,4,7,4,4 equaling a mere 39 points WITH leg kicks (he threw 28 i gave him 14 points for it).

All in all, Machida was the winner when carefully reviewed. I'm sorry to the Shogun fans. He's talented and is going places. Don't think i'm just protecting Machida. I take NO sides.
- Miguel Espinal
dominican4ver@yahoo.com

[nathan]

unfortunately, fightmetric doesn't take a lot of factors into consideration, such as 'fakes' or irrelevant hits (such as the 8 knees thrown by rua in the first round during a short clinch, only 2 of which even appear relevant.) it's also just plain inaccurate. just watch the fight and count the number of blows attempted/landed by each fighter. it's clearly in machida's favor.

there's a lot to be said about accuracy. machida, in the first three rounds, has a MUCH greater accuracy rate. on top of that, he just lands more hits. he also doesnt fail at any take down attempts.

however, in rounds four and five, rua's accuracy is far greater and he lands more blows. on top of that, machida falls down under his own fault in round four, and rua catches one of machida's kicks and almost turns it into a large counter in round five.

that being said, there's a lot to say about the actual impact of strikes and how they affect the overall flow of the match. unfortunately, theres no real way to measure such a thing.

i would also like to say that i agree with an earlier post. rogan's constant dick sucking of rua's leg kicks really overshadows his overall approach to the first three rounds. he also never really says anything about the big knees machida lands or the punches that hes landing. watching it with the sound off really changed my opinion of the match. initially, i thought it was close, but still in machida's favor. having watched it with the sound off, the first three rounds clearly go to machida

[Mitsukai]

I think im the first to say this....but i thought machida won that fight....i saw it live....
Im a huge fan of shogun,but a even bigger fan of machida.

I think the judges did mark it right,come it people it was 1 POINT.

I think a lot of people are not used to seeing a defense master like machida fight liek the way he did.People are always used to and like seeing fighters like shogun,rampage,griffin etc etc get huge combos and knockouts,and pushing forward all the time.But what you see with machida is a master of defense and timimg.

Im not sure if everyone noticed how many blows and strikes machida blocked,and a takedown he stopped,judges mark things like that ya no.

People can easily assume that shogun wom because it looked like a illusion that he was forward forward ,strking,striking so he must win.No cause people wernt paying attention to machida teqnique of defense.

Dont flame me on this please.i have full respect for all fighters.And i love this sport,and its only my Opinion.

But it was close,but people missed what machida did,and i think that give him edge.

[Lyoto Machida]

I Lyoto Machida, I feel I won fight though i pissing red urine after fight. Shogun really good with kicking but that all you guys saw, did not you see me punching shogun in the head? Leg kick of shogun very very flashy but me punch is like secret, you not see it but trust me shogun feel it.

P.S.
Rogan always say "look at shogun kick and kick again again", he a fuck dumbass.

KARATE RULES!!!... Wonderbread also Rules..

[Gary]

I didn't watch the fight live but heard everyone saying Machida should have lost and it was a rip off. I just watched the fight and replayed it several times. Shogun's had the right strategy by taking out his legs, but he didn't finish him off. You CANNOT take the title from the champ by mostly kicking his legs all night. It's the same as boxing, you have to take the title away. If Machida wasn't the champ, I could see it going to Shogun. But Machida is the champ and from what I saw, I agree with the judges decision. After this fight, I think Machida learned a valuable lesson a will be well prepared for all of his future fights. If there's a rematch, I'll take Machida.

[Lyoto Machida]

Hello Mr. Gary,
I am Lyoto Machida, i am thank you for your comment. You should be judge in future fight of mine so i always win.. If i am knock out in a future fight, please call it a draw.
In return i will not kill you.

Wonderbread rules!!!

[www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=549693958]

Alright you know what, I'm sick of people believing everything they hear and accepting it as fact. Now I know what I'm about to say, I'm saying to a very "bigheaded" community but the truth must be told. Half the UFC fans in the world believe everything the announcers say because they are too stupid to think for themselves. I watched the fight live and I called the announcers out on not knowing what they were talking about on more than one instance. At one point (I think it was during round 3 or 4) one of the announcers made note that Machida had connected several times and then the other retard announcer said something to the effect of "And Shogun got a few in too". I said to my buddies "Shogun didn't land any in that little sprawl that I could see". And then what do we find on the replay, I think showgun "tapped" him once. I was not a fan of Machida's performance at all, but the announcers didn't know what the heck they were talking about and the UFC community was dumb enough to believe them. The announcers were completely favoring "Shogun". In all honesty, I think "Shogun" fought better, but Machida definitely got in a significant number of headshots. I actually thought the fight should've gone to Machida. If the fight continued, Machida would've either knocked him out or Shogun would've destroyed Machida's legs beyond use. Going off of that and the number of punches Machida landed to the face I didn't have a problem with Machida taking the cake. I think the reason why a lot of people are bothered by it is because the air-headed announcers told them what to think beforehand.

[Lyoto Machida]

Hello to you Mr. Dane Grant,
I agreeing with you that i should be taking this cake you speak of. I enjoy chocolate cake after training hard.. but big question is.. Where is Lyoto's cake?? Dana gave me no cake! ZUFFA sisters gave me no cake!!! Where is my cake????

In any case, Wonderbread rules like Karate!