Shogun absolutely robbed, am so heartbroken over the whole thing.
Shogun absolutely robbed, am so heartbroken over the whole thing.
Rarely have I seen such blatant robbery take place
I'm kinda getting the impression that someone may have been robbed.
the worst call I've ever seen. I have no idea what the hell the judges were watching. Machida took at most, only the third round. I'm no fan of Machida and it pisses me off more because I don't think anyone else was going to beat him except for Shogun or possibly Rampage, Shogun having the better chance of the two.
So I'm finally watching the Shogun fight everyone's talking about. I'll keep score after each round.
First round: Shogun, but barely, for landing a couple of more decent kicks. Very even fight, could go either way. They seemed fairly even in striking.
Second round: Also very close. Shogun seemed to land more kicks in the last 1:30, but I think Machida did the most in the first 3:30. I'd give it (again, barely) to Machida.
Third round: I went into the last 1:30 or so having no idea who was winning this round. I started to lean towards Shogun after a couple of more good body kicks, but then Machida took him to the cage and threw a ton of punches, which was the most significant event of the round. On the replay it looks like Shogun got in 1-2 good punches during that, but Machida landed 4-5, along with a good knee. Yet again very close, but I'd give it to Machida.
Fourth round: very little happened in this round. Machida landed a couple of quick punches at one point, but outside of that 10 seconds did next to nothing, and Shogun at least landed a few kicks throughout. So I'd give it to Shogun.
Fifth round: I thought Shogun controlled the first 2:00 or so (though not significantly), and then Machida landed a couple of great knees, which was the most significant event until Shogun landed a couple of good punches of his own about a minute later. Not much happened the rest of the fight. I'd give this one to Shogun again.
So I have it scored it 48-47, Shogun. However, rounds 1 and 2 both could really go either way (I thought 3 was clearly Machida and 4 was clearly Shogun). If round 1 was given to Machida, I'd have no problem with the score flipped.
And that's what happened: 48-47 Machida. Yeah, I thought Shogun did better. But "robbed" is too harsh. The one announcer who kept hyping Shogun may have skewed some perceptions; I did not think Shogun clearly won either of the first two rounds (though I gave round 1 to him).
I'd have to watch it again to properly remember it (cba to do it yet) but I gave it 4-1 to Shogun. The only thing I distinctly remember that I cba to pick up on at the moment is that flurry of punches he threw at the end of the 3rd, of which most were glancing blows and then he got smashed in the head with a right hook counter and was forced to back out again. If you're going for aggression then I guess you could score that flurry to Machida but if you're looking at who actually did the damage in that exchange it was probably Shogun. Also if you're going to score on aggression then you'd have to factor in for pretty much the rest of the fight the one pushing the fight was Shogun, the fight stats had him outlanding Machida something like 82-46 with blows and his accuracy was around 55% to Machidas 35%. Octagon control would have also had to go to Shogun as well for mine. Sure, no one is denying it was a close fight, but I believe (and almost every mma source you can find out there, there's a big ass list on sherdog but I cba to grab it right now) it was a close fight that Shogun won, and he should be the LHW champ as we speak. Especially if you look at it another way and think that if instead of scoring it 10-9 they would have used the 10-10 for close rounds, you could have called the first two 10-10's because they were pretty close and Shogun still would have taken in on the back of the 4th and 5th which were both his imho. No matter how I look at it I just don't see what Machida did that deserved to win moreso than Shogun.
I'd have to dispute that. Most of Machida's punches were glancing, yes, but he landed solidly a few times, and Shogun only got that one good punch in. If Machida had been felled or "rocked" by it or something, it would be different, but he wasn't remotely. Machida seemed to get the best of that encounter. Again, I blame the announcing. And I don't think "aggression" by itself warrants points, but dictating the pace of the fight, controlling the encounters definitely should (which is my main justification for saying round 4 was "clearly Shogun").Originally Posted by DK
However, I agree that I think Shogun won the fight. I just think it was really too close to say he was "robbed."
And judges can give 10-10 rounds???
I am probably never going to watch a Couture fight again. The man is just straight out boring.
He's like 80. You can't really blame him for not being a real exciting fighter nowadays.
Someone needs to take him out the back of the barn and shoot him.
Mind you there's rumours he'll get a LHW title shot if he wins his next fight, so that'll be against Shogun or Machida and that should be the end of that.
I just watched 105, and I must say, I don't understand the announcers (or judges) sometimes. I don't understand how every judge universally gave Couture round 1 and round 3 (round 2 was definitively Vera). They both admittedly could go either way, especially round 1 in which absolutely nothing happened: Vera landed a couple of hits, and then Couture hugged him against the fence for 4:30. And the announcers said he was "dominating" and "doing just what he wanted"? What? He did NO damage. NO takedown. The announcers kept saying "dirty boxing" but I think I saw like two half-punches. Vera didn't do anything either, so as I said I could see Couture taking the round, but it was hardly clear.
And round 3 I thought went to Vera. Yeah, Randy landed a couple of punches early and did his hug-job for the next 2:50, but Vera landed some vicious kicks, and later some punches, AND had an actual takedown. While again I could see a judge giving Couture the round, since it wasn't that definitive, all three? Really?
At least one announcer said he thought that it was another example of a "problem" with judging in MMA.
I had the fight scored for Vera and I'm no fan of his. But yeah the commentators are huge Randy nuthuggers so it didn't surprise me all that much to hear them on it for him, but yeah Rogan was pretty much against the decision at the end.
Pearson-Riley was the best show on the card for mine, Pearson was awesome
However, during that fight it did amuse me greatly when Goldberg did the whole spiel about "any unauthorized reproduction is illegal blah blah blah" and Rogan said "you can't stop the internet!" I was kind of surprised he'd say that. Kudos to him, though. He was the one who also publicly said after the match that there was a problem with UFC judging.
EDIT: also, I agree that Pearson was impressive. There were a couple of good KOs in the earlier fights.