Fight Study: Machida v. Shogun Rua; UFC 104 (10/24/09)

Shogun won.

Now that that's out of the way, let's look over this fight a little more closely.

"Karate is back"

Machida's reign as Light Heavyweight Champion is built a lot on his "allusiveness" (you mean "elusiveness" UFC programming directors) and his accuracy. He keeps his distance, then jumps in with some strikes and body kicks. Most of his fights go the distance, a lot of fans think he's boring. Machida credits his victories and skill to Karate. If anything, he should credit his flaws on Karate.

Dancing around the ring is not unique to Karate, if anything it's been a proven method of fighting since the advent of modern boxing. It is true that Karate and most traditional martial art (TMA) styles tend to stay in a longer range in their combat. Boxers and kickboxers will usually stand just outside of the boxing range. Karate and TMA guys will stand outside of kicking range, as such, a large part of their arsenal is to "jump in" to overcome this distance rapidly and fire off a shot. Since most TMA competitions are scored like glorified games of tag, a lot of TMA guys are good at backing off and avoiding contact. When it comes to boxing, the way you fight a dancing boxer is to cut the ring off and corner him against the ropes. In the much larger octagon, there's a lot more space for Machida to run, making it a lot harder for fighters to cut the ring off and punish Machida. It's a great strategy and surprises me as to why there aren't more fleet footed fighters in the UFC, likely some machismo mentality MMA fighters seem to have about slugging and banging in the middle of the ring as opposed to fighting a "boring" but smarter fight.

What Karate guys aren't good at is keeping their hands up. With certain exceptions, (Kyokushin Karate for instance) most Karate guys drop their hands. They also don't realize the importance of keeping their chin tucked, if anything, they are taught to keep their heads up to avoid getting tagged on the top of the head with an axe kick or the like. Machida keeps his hands low and when he throws punches he has the bad habit of dropping them after wards. His back pedaling and push off are usually enough to cover for his mistakes but slipping and countering could be the punch that knocks Machida out.

The Karate stance is also susceptible to low kicks. Since they stand with their body to one side, they keep their feet in line as opposed to the square stance of kickboxers. There's a reason why kickboxers keep their stance so square, it's so they can pick off and block low kicks shin to shin. The Karate stance is not optimal to block low kicks, with the legs and body facing the side and not forward, the leg has to rotate further outward to block the low kick.

Most TMA and Karate styles don't kick to the legs. In fact, Machida is more well known for his body kicks than his low kicks, which isn't surprising considering his karate background. The legs usually aren't a scoring target in most Karate competitions (again, with the exception of Kyokushin). This makes Machida predictable with his kicks, usually his speed allows him to get away with throwing a kick and getting out, yet predictable timing is predictable timing none the less. Check out Nate Marquardt's victory over Damian Maia at UFC 102 for proof.

To beat the Champ

So to sum up, Machida's defeat lies in cornering and cutting off the ring, timing his rush in attacks and countering to his body or his legs to further cut off his mobility, slipping and taking advantage of his high chin and lazy hands.

Shogun did nearly all that and still could not "win" in the eyes of the judges. Granted, the ruling has come into question and has brought the fight a great deal of controversy.

To Machida's credit, the fight is a lot closer than fans have been crying about. No round with the exception of the last round is clearly dominated by one fighter. (Shogun) The fourth round arguably goes to Shogun though not incredibly decisive by any means. The first three rounds is the trouble, they are very very close. For every strike Machida would throw, Shogun would return in kind, usually to Machida's legs. By the fifth round, Machida was heavy on his feet and couldn't muster much of a counter offensive to Shogun's devastating leg kicks. Shogun threw more strikes, landed more strikes, forced the pace and kept the offensive and had the only clearly dominating round in the fight. So what went wrong?

Judges decision

So what happened? The judges sure surprised the hell out of everyone, including Machida and his corner. The Judges scorecards revealed that all but one judge scored the first three rounds to Machida. All of them scored the final round in Shogun's favor at the least. The other two Judges scored the fourth to Shogun as well. So the first three rounds are the rounds in question. Truth be told, they were just too close to call. If you look at the math and say, okay, Machida won those first three rounds to Shogun's final two, then yes, Machida won by decision.

The problem with scorecards are that they don't take into account the tide of the match, nor do they allow "even" rounds. Let's say the first three rounds could be scored as even rounds. The only clear dominating round then goes to Shogun. Shogun was winning the fight at this point and had this rate continued and had there been more rounds in the match, Shogun would theoretically win. But that's not how MMA or boxing works and defeating fighters who rely on point wins is a fight against time. Point fighters win the battle by winning proxy battles, a significant round is meaningless then unless the fighter can finish off the fight in that significant round.

A possible explanation for Machida's taking of the first three rounds is the perception of low kicks by the judges. As far as I'm aware, there is no clarification on the weight of strikes, there is no rule that officially declares punches to the head scored higher than leg kicks, so the decision is up to the judges discretion. Can a leg kick finish a fight? Yes; however a leg kick will unlikely cause a flash or instant knockout. A punch can finish a fight instantly, the leg kick needs building up. In boxing, body punches are the same way, they are "money in the bank," an investment to take away a boxer's long term fighting ability. They are less likely to cause a knockdown but that doesn't necessarily mean they are scored any less. So when Machida throws a kick to the body of Shogun and Shogun counters with a leg kick, a possible theory is that the judges scored Machida's body kick more value than Shogun's low kicks.

Another possible explanation is who controlled what little grappling there was in the match. Shogun would counter a knee by shooting in for a takedown but Machida would defend all of Shogun's attempts. (3 or 4 in total I believe) This ends up scoring a point for Machida instead of shogun.

One could also make the argument that even though Shogun was the one pressing forward, Machida was the one initiating contact, Machida was the one firing first. Perhaps the judges interpreted this as offensive aggression, despite Machida's constant backwards footwork. Most would argue that Machida's retreating would constitute as defensive aggression, which the rule set officially declare as inferior to offensive striking. Also, since Machida is back pedaling while getting hit by Shogun, perhaps the judges argued that Shogun's strikes didn't have as much weight behind them and weren't as significant as Machida's. Though to be honest I hardly buy this.

Honestly the match was very close, I still think Shogun won the fight, pressed the pace, gave as good as he got and then some, and had the only dominating round in the match. It wasn't quite the robbery everyone claimed, it was a lot closer in scoring than people are giving Machida credit.

Yet one thing remains rightfully clear, Machida's image of Karate invincibility has all but dissolved at this point thanks to Shogun. Can every fighter have similar success as Shogun did against Machida? Not likely. Can Machida overcome his faults, yes, but part of the problem lies in his so called strength. As I pointed out, his sloppy habits are the faults of Karate. There is a reason why TMA were so easily beaten in the early octagon days. There's a reason why MMA fighters are pretty generic now in their fighting styles. Certainly part of Machida's fame is his distinct Karate flavor and I would like to see him overcome his faults without compromising his Karate lineage but that will be difficult. The hands and chin can be ameliorated but years of TMA can ingrain bad habits. The stance however has no true counter measure to low kicks. The only means of defending a low kick in a karate stance is footwork really, to step back and away and let the kick miss completely. Unfortunately, the way Shogun countered left little time for Machida to regain his balance fast enough and step out of the way, and as the match continued and the leg kicks accumulated, Machida's reflexes had been worn down to the point that footwork was impossible. Kyokushin Karate is the only Karate I'm aware of that trains with leg kicks specifically, of course Kyokushin does so by compromising the traditional karate stance for a more square stance, similar to kickboxers.

The rematch is set to be as immediate as possible, thankfully. So we'll be seeing Shogun v Machida 2 by either late December or January if possible. Good news for true fight fans, this was a fun fight to watch.