UFC FIGHTNIGHT - SHOGON vs. SONNEN

strategy: wait for early onslought, see odds going up on Browne. Wait til Overeem gasses, bet!

Travis Browne @ 5.50 € 100 Single Stake: 100.00 Return: 550.00 :rock1:

 

Haha, no way, nicely played.

 

agreed, remind me of a small GSP

 

Sadly, Overeem shows once again that he just doesn't have a warrior mentality. He's a front runner who seems more interested in being a star than a fighter

 

I am being reminded as I type this how boring Chael Sonnen is MINUS his comedy act.

 

Cut Rua just like the rest of the PRIDE fighters he's greatly overrated.

 

Rua is done, hit looked like he trained at Burger Kings

 

It's really hard to believe Rua Ko'ed Machida. He seemed so useless in his entire UFC run.

 

Is the comma supposed to go after Rua or fighters?

 

Rua is another guy that thrived by not facing great MMA wrestlers in Pride. And don't say Coleman. Rua basically quit against Sonnen after not being able to get off his back.

And now Overeem is officially the most overrated fighter in MMA history. Remember when Overeem was on that 12 fight win streak against bums in Strikeforce and Dream? I can't remember if it was TLC, Jesus of Montreal or who that claimed he was easily the best HW in the world.

I hate to say it but Matt Brown deserves a fight against one of the top 5 welters in the UFC.

Very good inaugural card on Fox Sports 1.

 

Who would have picked Sonnen by submission? I know I wouldn't have. I thought Rua was going to win, possibly getting a stoppage, but he just seems to have no steam anymore. The guy just plain gasses out. He was very good in Pride, but that was 8 years ago.

The 2005 tournament was one of the greatest assemblages of lightheavyweight talent there could have been, barring a few guys from the UFC (Randy and Chuck). Shogun was on fire back then, and back then Ricardo Arona was a very good wrestler.

Of course, that's 8 years ago and Shogun had bad problems with his elbow (Remember how horribly it popped out when he tried to post up from the Coleman takedown?), and later getting knee ligaments from a cadaver to help rebuild his knee. He was hot and cold in his career. When he was cold, he was forgettable. When he was hot, he was one of the best in the world. Due to his style of fighting and his physical issues, he was never going to have a Randy Couture-type career, but I don't agree with BOSS that Rua is overrated. He WAS a fighter with great talent, but he's clearly past it now.

 

Arona was a good submission grappler. He was never a great wrestler.

Rua thrived in the Pride GP because he faced a slew of strikers that didn't have his versatility or chin. And then in the final, Arona had nothing for him.

Funny when you look back at that tournament how Rua avoided the decent wrestlers like Lister, Sakuraba and great judo guys like Yoshida and Yoon.

I never bought the conspiracy that Pride fights were fixed, but that MW Gran Prix was certainly matched with certain steering. Arona fucked up a possible blockbuster Rua-Silva final.

 

Rua and Silva were part of the same club and I believe I have seen interviews in the past around that time in which one or the other said they wouldn't have fought. I could be wrong.

Arona may not have been a great wrestler, but he was a pretty good one and he massacred Sakuraba, a good wrestler, when they fought. He also kept Fedor cemented to the ground when they fought in Rings. Some people think Arona won that fight.

Rua kicked the shit out of Rampage when they fought. He straight up embarrassed Rampage. He also did quite the nice little number on a 205lb Overeem back then---the same Overeem who had just submitted Igor Vovchanchyn with a nasty choke. Rua also outwrestled/outgrappled Little Nog to win their bout. Rua was really good back then.

 

Well, I don't disagree with much of what you said, but the point is still he same. Rua never faced great wrestlers in Pride.


But with the advantage of hindsight, Rua's performances in the Pride MW GP can be put in the proper perspective. Rampage basically didnt even train. Overeem has shown us that he has no heart, chin or stamina. And Rua had a hell of a time with an average Little Nog who was knocked senseless in 23 seconds just a few months later by the utterly worthless Sokoudjou.

And by the way, Arona massacred Sakuraba because Sakuraba's stand up sucked balls. I wouldn't point to that fight as a testament to Arona's MMA wrestling mastery.

But it's really beside the point. Guys like Jones and Sonnen that have made quick and painless work of Rua are in a completely different universe when it comes to wrestling than Arona. And that's the extreme.

But Rua also never faced good wrestlers that were his contemporaries at the time. Guys like Ortiz, Frank Shamrock, and Couture that were also far better wrestlers.

 

It's weird how Sokoudjou came in and crushed Lil Nog and Arona, but then he started sucking hardcore. Maybe my estimation of them was too high to begin with. He came in and looked like a killer, and then he did inexplicable stuff like beat Bob Sapp and lost to Minowaman.

I don't know how Rua would have ever faced Frank Shamrock though. They were never in the same organization at the same time, were they?

 

Not that I'm aware of. But that is probably true with a bunch of the guys I listed. Well, at least when it mattered.

 

Yeah, Randy, Chuck, and Tito were in the UFC. Then again, if Rua didn't want to fight Silva, he could have gone to the UFC and not worried about it.

 

Silva-Rua would be fun now. Both are about equally shot.

 

Silva's chin could crumble, but Shogun might gas before his fist gets there. :l2:

 

Overeem is a guy who gets a lot better when he is a cheating, POS juicer. It's not fair to hold estimations of his ranking back then to the less-juiced version who has been fighting lately.

 

I don't know when he started juicing but I've always assumed it was right after he lost 3 straight at lightheavy and decided to move up to HW full time .

 

Rua is easily the most shot fighter at his age in the history of the sport. I wasn't too wired for this card just because I've been laying into Shogun for stealing money for months now. He doesn't even train anymore.

Joe Stevenson is a distant second.

 

SHOT or just disinterested, and one dimensional? I think physically he's just fine, fully capable of evolving his game, and catching up to the rest of us in 2013. Unfortunately I think he's just riding out his contract, because he's just lazy, and knows he's made enough money and has enough name recognition to keep making money in other promotions, even if UFC were to let him go. Physically shot? no. Mentally shot? Sure.

 

Irish eyes are crying. McGregor ruptured his ACL in the 1st round the other night in his fight with Holloway.

I give him a ton of credit for continuing to fight. Adrenaline is a great pain killer because that is one painful fucking injury.

 

He's physically shot too, his knees are so bad they probably resemble an 80 year olds. I remember reading somewhere that after the second Machida fight and onto his third knee surgery, he had to cut his training camps short because his knees wouldn't hold up anymore.

This results in awful strength and conditioning which was already plagued by a bad work ethic to begin with...but now he is entirely useless as a fighter. Especially after he had his kid and lost his hunger. People were surprised at Chael submitting him but given his laughable training regimens which have been publicly criticized by guys like Rafael Cordeiro(who Im not sure is still working with Shogun at this point), it didn't shock me one bit. I was thinking that if Chael had any claim to be an elite fighter, which I wasn't 100% sure of, he'd stop Shogun within 3 rounds and he did.