I am a big Machida fan. I believe he is the best MMA fighter, even better than Anderson Silva. If you watch his fights you can see the pure Karate skill he has, I have never seen a more elusive fighter, his timing is absolutely perfect, not only is he almost impossible to hit, he also has knock out power in his fists, just watch the Machida Evans fight.

Now onto the Rua fight, basically put, Machida was off form and Rua was on form. I am not going to make excuses either. I think Rua and his team had really focused on making Rua as unpredictable as possible therefore Machida's best attributes of elusiveness and timing would not work. I think Rua nailed this in the octagon, also Rua's relentless leg kicks just simply broke down Machida, the result of these leg kicks showed us Machida's weaker side as he seemed to give up as the fight progressed. If you look at Machida's face from the third round onwards you can see he doesn't have that determined look that a champion should always have. Machida should not have assumed that Rua was going to be aggressive.

Finally i believe that the judges decision was wrong, even as a Machida fan, Machida did land more combinations, but Rua landed a lot more solid punches that actually stumbled Machida at some points, not to mention the devastating leg and body shots landed by Rua.

Mauricio Shogun Rua should have won the fight and the belt.