

Photo by Josh Hedges/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images

It is time for Mauricio 'Shogun' Rua to hang up his gloves, but I can almost guarantee you that he won't. It's going to get a lot sadder and a lot uglier before it's over.

Last night, the former UFC light heavyweight champion and PRIDE Middleweight Grand Prix winner was dropped and finished within a minute by late replacement, Ovince St. Preux. OSP was a horrible match up for Shogun when he stepped in for Jimi Manuwa because even at Shogun's best he struggled to stop takedowns from the better wrestlers of his division. The thinking was that Shogun was getting taken down and laid on. OSP didn't get a chance to do that though, as Rua went down on the first good punch of the fight.



Face first, no thought for defense.

I'm going to let you in on a secret: I stopped writing previews for Shogun's fights a while back, because frankly he hasn't had a good showing since before I began writing. I'll write a feature on his most memorable fights or the techniques he used at his best and I'll hope no-one notices. It gets old writing “he's still leading with his face and swinging wild” and it was certainly getting boring being told I was wrong when he occasionally picked up a win by way of his opponents' standing perfectly still for him. Last night, Rua was the same he has always been, plodding forwards swinging hooks. Occasionally kicking, without set up or follow up.

The three best striking performances of Shogun's life—against Lyoto Machida (x2) and Chuck Liddell—stand in stark contrast to the rest of his career. Against Liddell he timed his kicks beautifully, stayed over his hips and feet, and moved his head following his punches.

Not conventional boxing, but an overhand into a weave, covers up and continues moving his head, and even sneaks in a winding body kick to break Liddell's flurry. There's no-one arguing that this isn't beautiful, thoughtful, technical striking.

Against Machida, he forced Machida to retreat and chopped out The Dragon's legs repeatedly. His performances against both men were sublime and it seemed to be largely because Shogun wasn't so concerned with getting either man out of there with one punch. In fact, Shogun looked as different in those fights as his old rival, Forrest Griffin looked in only his bouts with Rua and Quinton Jackson. Sometimes the stars align, and a good fighter with great attributes uses great technique. Those are the near perfect performances a fight fan lives for.

Rua, like so many other MMA fighters as they get older, became fixated on his hands. Wanderlei Silva was exactly the same—he'd made a career out of swarming on opponents with an unpolished but multi-dimensional striking style and his use of the double collar tie—but he became obsessed with knocking everyone out with punches, and he just couldn't do it. It wasn't a lack of power, it was a lack of skill in actually landing those haymakers.

And it isn't just MMA fighters either. So many hard punching boxers became almost caricatures of themselves. Prince Naseem, Roy Jones, Mike Tyson, George Foreman after he lost his title the first time. It becomes all about that punching power and not the boxing which made it land. Even Sugar Ray Robinson wrote candidly in his autobiography that the moment he became fixated on knocking people out was the moment he started struggling to do much of anything in his fights.

And that is the same way Shogun been for quite some time. His punches are not hidden, there are no set ups, he throws them and he hopes the other guy stands there and eats them. As far as his punching goes, when he's not leading with the overhand, Shogun's craftiest technique is his shifting left hook.

But when it works well, it has been because he's been throwing kicks, jabs and all sorts of other stuff to keep the opponent guessing. Chuck Liddell thought he was throwing a left hook counter to a right low kick and hit the deck like a burlap sack full of soup. But if Shogun isn't showing that variety, and he doesn't move his head, and he stands in front of his opponent for several moments before running in, he's more than likely to just run himself onto punches.

It's that always coming in on a straight line, and never deviating. Never feinting or faking. Never offering anything that might dissuade an opponent from simply breaking off and circling away, or countering. And that's exactly what Ovince St. Preux did, and he managed to deck Shogun on the first attempt.

Outpointing Machida on the outside with low kicks gave Machida an incentive to step in and fight. But not a single one of Shogun's opponents since he lost the title has been given any reason to step in and fight him. A couple of them were silly enough to, but he's certainly doing nothing to make them.

I've already prattled on too long about this, but it has become obvious that Shogun can be easily out manoeuvred in his bouts. There are still some light heavyweights who haven't got the memo about his punching power, and will stand and trade with him, but their number grows smaller by the day. What we're looking at now is a Keith Jardine era Wanderlei Silva. He'll get the occasional knockout, and it'll probably be spectacular, but it will rely on the other guy fighting to just about the worst gameplan possible.

The rest of the card wasn't much less awful than the main event. Warlley Alves stormed out of the gate against Alan Jouban, gassed hard, then did nothing for much of the fight and picked up a shameful hometown decision, and Caio Magalhes stopped his second fight by illegal hammerfists to the back of the head, and the referee didn't bat an eyelid.



Just amazing... Here's the first one.

The sole ray of sunshine on this dismal night of fights came in the form of Thomas Almeida. I've never seen Almeida fight before, but he looked brilliant against Tim Gorman. Gorman came out fast and looked to take Almeida down. Almeida used the threat of a ninja choke to fend Gorman off to begin with, something we're seeing more and more in the UFC, Martin Kampmann used it well against Carlos Condit.

But I really enjoyed was the fluidity of Almeida's striking. He doesn't jab a whole lot but he'll slip and throw the right hook, hoping for a cross counter, and immediately follow with three or four punches, a couple to the midsection and a high knee with his lead leg. Everything but the kitchen sink was being thrown and most of it was landing. Almeida was a favorite going in, but it is always great to watch a fighter work so fluidly and with such variety.

UFC Fight Night 56 was nothingon Friday's Fight Night 55—which was one of the best events of the year—but that's the way the fight world goes, you never know what you're going to get.

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