Two Ships Passing in the Night: the divergent career paths of Shogun and Chael Sonnen

A despondent Mauricio Rua sits on the mat after tapping out, apparently with enormous objects sewn under his back--seriously, he looks like the Hunchback of Notre Dame.  

For mma fans who have come into the sport in the last 7 years, you have not actually seen Shogun Rua.  Mauricio Rua may share the name of the guy who fought with the purest form of aggression and violence mma has ever seen, but after 3 knee surgeries robbed him of his considerable athleticism, Mauricio Rua is merely a shell of Shogun.  The Shogun of Pride was likely the 2nd best LHW in mma history behind only Jon Jones (and I'm not even sure if Jon Jones would have won that bout).  He didn't just win fights; he beat people almost to death in a hurricane-like whir of stomps, soccer kicks, clinch knees, flying knees, low kicks, body kicks, head kicks, and (sloppy but effective) punches.  Shogun didn't plod forward as he has been reduced to doing in his UFC tenure; instead, his strikes exploded onto his opponents like bits of flying shrapnel.

I hate the highlights the UFC shows of him, which constitute Mauricio's UFC "highlight" reel.  This highlight reel consists of knocking out an ancient and shot Chuck Liddell, knocking out 44 year old Mark Coleman in a fight in which both men looked at risk of suffering heart attacks from poor conditioning (after a 2 year layoff by Coleman, no less), knocking out Brandon Vera's corpse in 4 rounds, and knocking out the shot Forrest Griffin.  His one true highlight in the UFC was his KO of Machida.  The UFC is loath to show Shogun's Pride highlights because 1) Pride had a far superior product to anything the UFC has ever done (and many better fighters, although UFC fanboys will cry and scream upon hearing that), and because 2) seeing Pride highlights of Shogun, and his prodigious descent into mediocrity, would make it hard for the UFC to market Mauricio Rua as a world-class fighter in present day.  Reason number 1 is obviously much more important than reason 2; UFC has marketed plenty of non-world class fighters in main events.

UFC's principal intention when acting like Pride did not exist is to make mma fans think that UFC is the best mma organization in the sport's history, which is debatable.   There is a reason Joe Rogan never talks about how Shogun beat Overeem and Arona in the same night in front of 47,000 screaming fans in the Saitama Arena to win the best tournament in mma history.  There is a reason Rogan doesn't talk about Shogun beating Rampage to the point that Quinton was reduced to a position of immobility in the corner as he lay slumped on the mat with his head an easy target for Shogun's soccer kicks.

That reason is to minimize Pride's significance.

There was an inescapable feeling when watching Shogun in Pride that he was going to badly hurt his opponents; he was too fast, had too much cardio, was too aggressive, and was too good, both on the feet and on the ground.  His brutalizations of Rampage (who was much better in Pride than when he subsequently became UFC champion), Arona (who had just beaten Wanderlei Silva, the consensus #1 205 fighter in the world, and whom I would say would be the 3rd best fighter in the UFC 205 division if he were fighting in it now), Overeem (in a comeback that exemplified Shogun's heart and Overeem's uncanny ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory), and Akihiro Gono (among others) were unlike anything I had ever seen.  Perhaps Shogun's toughest fight in Pride was against lil Nog, with whom Shogun engaged in an incredibly tough, back and forth battle.  Nog's hands (he was a Brazilian amateur boxing champion) gave him a clear edge, but Shogun just gutted out a win in one of the highest-level mma matches in the sport's history.

His UFC tenure has been marked by a mix of good (Machida win), bad (losses to Forrest Griffin, Dan Henderson, Gustaffson) and ugly (the Coleman debacle and the absolute massacre he suffered at the hands of Jon Jones come to mind).  Saturday night marked a new chapter; even in his defeats in the UFC, he always showed heart and talent.  Saturday night, in the span of less than a round, he got taken down twice, swept, and choked.  As he sat on the mat after the referee pulled Chael off of him, I couldn't help but wonder if Mauricio knew it was all over.

His opponent, meanwhile, seems to be peaking late in his career.  The first time I saw a Chael Sonnen fight was his initial encounter against Paolo Filho, then 15-0 and the WEC champion.  Filho was considered one of the absolute best fighters in mma, but Chael beat him senseless.  Chael, an Olympic alternate wrestler, was able to keep the fight on the feet with ease, where he absolutely dominated.  When Chael stupidly did take the fight down, he found himself in a world of trouble, barely able to elude Filho's submissions.  In the second round, in the midst of beating Filho from pillar to post again, Chael went for another takedown, and found himself getting tapped out with 5 seconds left in the round.  How could someone with so much physical talent, be such a goddamn idiot?  That was the question I was left with after watching.

Chael threw around Bryan Baker in his next match, and then avenged his defeat to Filho in his final WEC fight.  Once in the UFC, Chael continued to flummox with his combination of great athleticism and skill, mixed with intermittent bouts of idiocy.  The first such moment of the latter category came against Demian Maia, when Chael, a far superior wrestler, allowed himself to get thrown, mounted, and submitted, by a guy who soon after moved down to the 170 pound division.  Chael rebounded with 3 consecutive wins, followed by his best and worst moment, the first Anderson Silva bout.

Nobody has ever been more elevated from a loss than Chael was against Anderson.  Even his drug suspension didn't seem to hurt his momentum.  With every passing interview, Chael honed his mic skills, eventually reaching the point where he became a commentator for Fox on their UFC broadcasts.  In his first fight after the Silva match, Chael beat the hell out of Brian Stann, overwhelming him and choking him out in the 2nd round.  Much more memorable than the fight itself, was Chael's epic promo.  As he did when Rogan interviewed him after choking Shogun, Chael entirely ignored Rogan's question, and delivered a WWE-style bit of microphone magic.  Nobody else in mma does what Chael does; for former pro wrestling fans, his promos seem familiar, but still fresh given the lack of predictability in mma.  Calling out the champion and saying he would leave the UFC if he lost to Anderson took a massive dose of chutzpah.

Chael has figured out that by talking, and talking well, the result of the fights themselves are not the only things that matter.  Obviously, talking lots of trash and getting pummeled every time you fight is not a good strategy, but in Chael's case, his losses to Anderson and Jon Jones didn't really hurt him.  He beat Silva senseless in the first encounter, clearly won the first round in the rematch, and very well may have been able to win had he not gone for his spinning elbow of doom.  Against Jon Jones, the best fighter in the history of the 205 pound division, and a man a clear weight class above him, Chael fought valiantly.  Although he was stopped inside of a round, Sonnen didn't embarrass himself.  His continued talking has kept him in the limelight; his ability to be witty, cocky, and vulnerable is a great mix.  It is noteworthy that before the Shogun fight, Chael didn't say anything bad about Shogun, just that he was going to beat Shogun and then decimate Wanderlei, whom Chael previously called "the worst fighter in UFC history".  As a viewer, it is hard not to be intrigued by a fighter who says things no one else will say.  Forget for a moment, if you will, the Brazil-bashing (although some of Chael's comments on Brazil are the funniest things I have ever heard a fighter say--a certain pair of brothers petting a bus and feeding it a horse come to mind--), and just appreciate that a former glorified journeyman, a man who has lost to Jeremy Horn THREE TIMES, has become one of the biggest draws in the entire sport.  Not bad.

American Soft Power

I remember learning about the concept of "soft power" while in college.  It refers to the ways in which a country can manipulate or alter the actions of other countries through non-violent means.  In America's case, this soft power comes not only from our economic might, but also our culture's unique and unparalleled ability to pervade and invade other countries and their cultures.

 The successful projection of soft power leads to America's strategic interests being obtained.  These interests include sweetheart trade deals, allowing America to use other countries for military bases, allowing America to use these other countries as rendition spots, and apparently, allowing American fighters to win ABSOLUTELY APPALLING decisions.

Lyoto Machida put on a clinic last night; he won every minute of the entire fight save 45 seconds in the first round and 20 seconds in the second round, the two times (out of 10 attempts, per FightMetric) when Phil Davis was able to get Lyoto down and land some ground and pound.  For the other 14 minutes of the fight, Machida controlled the action, landing powerful, crisp strikes, thwarting takedowns, making Davis look amateurish on the feet, and owning the Octagon.  When the decision was announced, I was left mouth agape, in absolute shock.  Perhaps that shock was misplaced; after all, I have seen the decisions in Rampage vs Machida as well as every single Leonard Garcia fight and Edgar vs Ben Henderson 2 (and Edgar vs BJ Penn 1, a result so terrible that I literally almost came to fisticuffs with one of my closest friends, who insisted that the decision was sound--he must have been trolling).  

At this point, I don't even know why mma doesn't just get rid of striking on the feet entirely, if the only thing the judges score is takedowns and weak ground and pound.  On my life, I have no idea why a takedown that does not cause bodily harm in and of itself, is scored more than a stuffed takedown.  Both are examples of controlling where the fight takes place.  If one man controls where the fight takes place for the vast majority of the round and clearly does more damage during that part of the round, why does the other man get awarded the round for pulling him on the ground?  I don't understand why landing head kicks and standing punches are not as valuable as arm punches thrown from 6 inches away while on the ground.  Fights like the one last night make me wonder if my time watching mma has ended, or yearn for the days of Pride, in which the fight was scored as a whole, rather than in round by round stanzas in which retarded judges can always find a way to award takedowns over all else.

I often complain about UFC President Dana White's penchant for lying, but as it pertains to his analysis of the fight last night, he was dead on:

"Machida definitely won that fight, definitely," White told Yahoo! Sports. "But that's his fault. He knows MMA judging sucks. It's terrible, it's [expletive], but he went out there and let him do it. I can't remember whether it was the first or the second, but Machida had that combination where he threw all those punches and ran across the cage and ended with that knee. That's when he's really good. But he wants to stay back and be a counter puncher and wait and fight cautiously."

Of course, Dana wants every fighter to go for broke at all times and risk getting KTFO (and cut from his contract) to provide a more exciting fight for the fans.  So when Dana talks about Machida being cautious, and that somehow equating to his fault, take it with a grain of salt.  Dana the promoter wants all action, all the time, but Dana the knowledgeable fight fan knows that it was a horrid decision.  

I almost feel bad for Phil Davis in all this; what is on paper the most glorious moment of his career, is considered a joke by most people who saw it.  Phil is a wonderfully talented fighter; his striking was much improved last night, his wrestling is top-notch, and his submission game is dangerous.  I think he would have beaten any light heavyweight in the world last night not named Jon Jones or Lyoto Machida (and maybe Glover Teixeira), but that doesn't change the fact that he was the beneficiary of American soft power, to the detriment of the natives in Brazil (namely Machida and the thousands of people at the stadium who booed so much I thought there was going to be a riot).  This result puts Dana White in a bit of a pickle; after Jones massacres Gustaffson, will get Machida get the rematch he deserves, will Phil Davis, woefully unprepared, fight Jon Jones, or will it be Teixeira?