 |
| 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.
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.
No comments:
Post a Comment