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UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Lyoto “The Dragon” Machida vs. Mauricio “Shogun” Rua
Main Event Odds: (-500 Machida / +300 Rua)
The main event of the evening is a UFC Light Heavyweight Title matchup between undefeated champion Lyoto “The Dragon” Machida and former World #1 Light Heavyweight Mauricio “Shogun” Rua. Rua is looking to return to the championship form he showed in PRIDE FC, but Rua is easily his toughest challenge to date, having never lost so much as a single minute of any of his 15 professional fights.
Rua, win or lose, has always been one of the most exciting Light Heavyweights in the world. An aggressive and powerful Muay Thai striker, Rua also has a dangerous and highly underrated ground game. In PRIDE, Shogun looked unstoppable, destroying top level opponents with an absurd level of violence. His UFC debut, though, was not all it was expected to be. Hampered by two knee surgeries and unable to train properly, Shogun looked slow and unimpressive in a rear naked choke loss to Forrest Griffin, and followed that up with an extremely lackluster win over an equally out of shape Mark Coleman. In his last fight, however, Shogun showed some of his old brilliance, dropping future Hall of Famer Chuck “The Iceman” Liddell with a huge hook that put the former champion on dream street. If Shogun is really back to full steam, he will be a potent challenger for Machida, but one impressive win over a fading Chuck Liddell is not enough to guarantee that the fabled “Old Shogun” is back.
Top of his game or not, Shogun is going to have his hands more than full with champion Lyoto “The Dragon” Machida. Machida, an undefeated phenom, is arguably one of the most dominant fighters in the history of the sport. Using his conservative counter punching style and top level ground game, Machida earned himself quite a few big wins before making his UFC debut. Early in his career, he was criticized for not being a finisher, but with experience he has grown into his style and become one of the most dangerous fighters in the world, as he proved with his embarrassing destruction of then-champion Rashad Evans in his last outing. Machida’s best attribute is that he is ridiculously accurate from any number of odd angles, but just as hard to hit as he is capable of hitting his opponents.
Stylistically, you have to give the edge to Machida. Both guys have very good ground games, but Shogun’s aggressive standup style is exactly what a counter puncher like Machida wants to see. Both fighters are capable of finishing this on the feet, but for Shogun to implement his game plan he is going to have to walk straight forward into Machida’s biggest strength. Shogun may have more power, it is up for debate, but Machida definitely has the advantage in both hand speed and accuracy. I think eventually, Machida’s technical edge will become too much for Shogun to handle. Rua will try to put the pressure on Machida, moving forward and trying to bully him into the clinch, but Machida’s surgical striking will prove more than Shogun can handle.
Fight Prediction: Machida retains his title by TKO early in round 3.
