Mauricio Rua Says Bring On Anderson Silva
 

Works out well for the UFC because Silva can fight for the title. I love that Shogun said he'd fight Silva.

Holy shit I just came.

What the article said, not me.

What if Anderson Silva faces Chael Sonnen at UFC 117 in August, Lyoto Machida faces Mauricio Rua at UFC 119 in September, and Vitor Belfort makes his official UFC debut at 185 at UFC 120 in October?

Assuming both Silva and Shogun win their next fights, they can do Silva vs. Shogun early next year for the Light Heavyweight Championship. If Belfort wins his fight, Silva - win or lose to Shogun - can defend the Middleweight Championship against Belfort after the fight with Shogun.

With Silva being the best on the planet, he deserves a chance to be the only guy in the history of the UFC to hold two belts in two different weight classes concurrently, and with Machida no longer champion, it would be a waste not to give Silva the opportunity to truly prove that without a doubt he's the best. A lot of people think Belfort should have at least one fight at 185 before he fights Silva anyway, so he can wait until after they do Silva vs. Shogun.

why would shogun fight machida at 119?

It's 4 months from now, and UFC 114-118 are all booked with main events already (Jackson/Evans, Liddell/Franklin, Lesnar/Carwin, Silva/Sonnen, & Penn/Edgar II). 119 has been announced to take place in September, but no main event for the card has yet. Machida/Shogun III could very well take it.

Theres no way in hell that they would have the same two guys fight for the title 3 times in a row especially when there was a finish to the match.

you realize rampage/evans takes place 3 weeks from now right?

That actually did cross my mind. The first fight was so controversial that with Shogun clearly winning the second fight, I see where you're coming from, but the article I posted said that the winner of Jackson/Evans isn't guaranteed a title shot, so it could be either Machida, Jackson, or Evans.

However, I don't see what the fight taking place 3 weeks from now has to do with determining Shogun's next opponent.

the fighters having enough time to be ready by september.... for example if they were fighting in july or august, they probably couldnt be ready by september

unless the ufc REALLY wants to see randy vs tony, they will probably make shogun/couture if it isnt the winner of jackson/evans

Yeah, I'm thinking the winner of Rampage/Evans gets Shogun.

I like Randy alot, but he isn't deserving of a title shot, he hasn't beaten anyone of worth in a long time, the last oppenant he fought who is even in title contention was Big Nog, and he lost.

Definitely whoever wins the Rashad/Rampage fight will get Shogun

Couture/Shogun would be good. Defeniatley won't be Machida/Shogun 3, wouldn't draw interest from fans as much as another opponent.

Dana did say that the winner of Rashad/Rampage is NOT guaranteed a shot though.

yeah, they are not guaranteed...but cmon, given the hype of this fight, and the caliber of the fighters, you really think the winner wont get the first shot at Shogun? Psh, that'd be some bad booking.

I think what Dana means is if Evans wins like he did last time, he probably won't get a shot.

well its official once rampage knocksout evans it will be Shogun vs Rampage 2

I hope Rampage knocks Rashad out and he does his famous rag doll physics limp leg maneuver.

I was going to say maybe dana didnt want to say the winner would get the shot because he didnt necessarily want rampage fighting for the title if he won (given the whole acting thing he did last year).

Anyway, now that he made this announcement, Im guessing if machida had won he would have waited to see the outcome of evans/jackson because he might not have wanted to give evans a crack at machida again and probably given it to couture. I guess it doesnt matter now.

at this point, i dont see where people get off under-estimating Rashad Evans.

in fact, all you people who think Rashad Evans sucks - that Rashad Evans is not a great fighter...among the very best in the world - you people are morons.

Dude who here has said rashad sucks?

Your commenting on a post where someone said rampage would knock him out. Is that seriously not a possibility to you? Rashad has not shown a great chin in the last two fights and rampage has the punch to turn his lights out without the punch being a solid one.

I would love to see Rampage actually use his wrestling again. Dunno if Rashad's the prime candidate for him to use it against, but he's so very one dimensional and lame now.

please.

the fuckin' guy said "once Rampage knocks out Rashad" as though it was a foregone conclusion.

I don't see how you turned him thinking "Rampage is going to win" into "Rashad Evans is a horrible fighter."

well if he thinks rampage is going to win, then i guess to him that would be a foregone conclusion... get off your high horse or rashads cock. Whatever you ride.

Unanimous decision for Jackson or Evans. After seeing Jackson's most recent fight with Keith Jardine and Evans' most recent fight with Thiago Silva, I highly doubt either one will knock the other out, but it should be a good fight.

Assuming Anderson Silva defeats Chael Sonnen at UFC 117 in August and Mauricio Rua defeats the winner of Jackson/Evans (UFC 119 in Sepetember maybe), they can still do Silva vs. Shogun for the Light Heavyweight Championship early next year.

as cool as it would be to see Silva/Shogun, i'd still much rather see Silva/GSP.

Silva is 3-4 inches taller, dangerous on the ground, and the best fighter in the world. No one matches the style of Silva enough to defend it, but chances are that it would go to a unanimous decision, and if GSP got him to the ground, it wouldn't stay there long. GSP would lose.

Shogun has the ability to take Silva down and shouldn't be taken lightly versus anyone. Silva's striking is better, but Shogun isn't a slouch in that department either. It would be a close match. I don't think it would be a blowout on either side, just that Silva would edge the win.

dude, get off me! i was making a point! that people still underestimate or completely disregard Rashad Evans as a fighter, dispite all of his success and accomplishments. practically every fight he goes into, he goes into it the same - with more people than not supremely confident that he is going to be crushed; and clearly he ends practically every fight the same - victorious.

i know that Rampage (who i am also a fan of) has a great punch (especially his hooks) and a great chin. but i think it is fair to say that Rashad has more ways to win this fight (to include knock out power). and if i were to lay money on this fight, i might even suppose that Rashad trains harder and that Jackson might suffer from a small amount of ring rust going into this fight.

and honestly, you've got balls, dude, to tell me or anybody on this forum to "get off their high horse." i make a simple point - that i find it unbeleivable that people still willfully underestimate Evans, and you turn it into this, whatever you call this. a nuthugger flame maybe. i dont know. my point being that you clearly believe that you are somebody special on this forum, with the inside scoop. to me, youre just somebody who spends way too much time sitting in front of their computer.

you started off calling people morons for thinking rashads going to lose and i called you on it. Im sorry you cant handle it when someone calls you in fact are being a moron.

Dude... seriously... you're overreacting.

Is Rashad talented? Yeah. Can Rashad win by knockout? Yeah. Can he win by unanimous decision? Yeah. I doubt anybody here would doubt that Rashad isn't talented. BUT that doesn't mean that everyone has to get behind him and assume that he's going to win each and every fight that he is in.

And the guy way up there that you originally quoted... just like you assume Rashad will win... he assumes that Rampage will win. So what makes his opinion any less valid than yours? He wants Rampage to win... you want Rashad to win. And on that night... someone is going to be proven right.

So how about chillin out a lil bit. And instead of fightin folks here for their opinions differing from yours... how about returning back to the topic at hand... and talking about how this should hopefully be a good fight. And the possibility of an outcome between Rua vs. Evans should he win or Rua vs. Rampage if he wins.

mmmm...okay. i guess that's a good point. but a little slippery. i was actually calling people who think Rashad SUCKS (as in cant fight, is always in for an ass-whoopin' no matter who he's fighting) morons. and i stand by that. i mean, sometimes it seems like there are people today who wouldnt give Rashad a chance against Houston Alexander. they're morons.

i have no problem with anyone thinking that the odds are in Rampage's favor. but it is clearly not a forgone conclusion. i think the odds slightly favor Rashad.

on the one hand, Rampage: knock out power, good strikes, good defense (strikes), good chin, good endurance, BUT, rather one-dimensional and is coming off of a sorta long break from fighting. and he did get dominated in bottom position for a whole round against Forrest Griffin.

on the other hand, Rashad Evans: faster than Rampage, good striker, good wrestler w/ good takedowns, good endurance, always evolving so we never know what he's gonna do (although i think it's fairly obvious what he should do against Rampage), and knock out power, BUT was blown out and KO'ed by Machida (so what), and i'm not going to say he has a weak chin but he was rocked by Silva in his last fight and seemed out on his feet for much of the second round vs Machida. with, Rampages power, he can definitely put Evans on quere street.

Rashad avoids Rampage's left and right hooks and takes the fight to the ground, advantage Rashad. i think that Rampage's likely game plan is a little harder to force.

Which is a Silva vs. Shogun fight

now we're getting somewhere

I dunno about Rashad being able to outwrestle Rampage though. Rampage is fucking strong. FUCKING STRONG. Not to mention a great wrestler. This is a lightheavyweight who threw around much bigger heavyweights all the time in Pride. This is a guy who powerbombed the shit out of Ricardo Arona with 1 arm while being triangled. This is a guy who outwrestled olympic silver medalist Dan Henderson to unify the pride and ufc belts.

If anything it's going to be even, if not advantage Rapage on the ground.

it will be interesting to see what happens if rashad can get rampage on his back. If the rashad/bisbing or rashad/silva fight is any indication, he needs to do more on top or else hes going to be put back on his feet.

I actually question the power rashad has in his hands compared to the higher rated strikers out there. He has 5 (t)kos out of his 14 wins with only 2 being on the feet with one strike. The head kick and the overhand against chuck. Im sorry but I dont see him having anywhere near the punching power of rampage. A single one punch KO against an aging chuck liddel who had his hands down doesnt prove much to me.

I do think that jackson's camp will put together a good gameplan for Rashad to follow to beat rampage. He just has to stick to it and not get hit with the power shots.

On a side note, ever notice how jardine fights a guy first then after they get to see what the opponent does against jardine, rashad gets a crack at him? maybe its just a coincidence a couple times but i think this is the 3rd or 4th time it will happen.

Anyway, one huge thing that is going to hurt rampage is he has slowed down A LOT since coming to the UFC. Not so much in hand speed, but in the sense that he doesnt move around at all anymore. She stands in one spot and swings when you get near him, which is why jardine almost beat him the same way he beat liddel until he got clipped with the big hook. Rampage used to go after guys and use his wrestling, which hurt him a few times against the Brazilian savages in pride, but there are some guys that he would kill doing that in the UFC.

Neither, I would think, need to worry about submissions. Rashad has never pulled one off in a fight, and im willing to bet rampage doesnt even train them anymore.


I see this fight as either a (t)ko for rampage or a close to unanimous decision for rashad.