Instances when the better fighter just got caught and proved it in the rematch

[markg171]

Talk about revisionist history, GSP was a excellent game planner. He didn’t do the stand up game with Serra out of ego , it was simply the logical thing to do. You however have a tremendous ego if you think you can go back in time a plan the fight better than GSP. He and you, got caught.

GSP has said numerous times he underestimated Serra and that's why he lost.

It's indeed revisionist history to instead pretend GSP was taking Serra super seriously and following any kind of serious gameplan like you're trying to attribute to him. He wasn't.

Let alone the insane mental gymnastics you have to make to say standing with Serra was the right thing to do when it got him TKO'd as opposed to grappling with him like he did in the rematch and instead TKO'd Serra. The better gameplan is literally apparent in the results both achieved.

 

[Viva]

I fear Usman vs Edwards 2 will fall into this category but I certainly hope not.

 

[Plissken]

I'm not sure if Shogun ever stated he was better than Forrest Griffen after he lost to him, but he was better and did show it in the rematch.

He did the same thing against Machida. I thought he won the first fight and for sure proved it in the second.

He did the same thing after a flukey loss to Mark Coleman as well.

Eh those first two aren't the best examples (the third is solid).

Forrest was in a pretty shit situation in the rematch and clearly did not want to be there. He was forced to go down to Brazil and fight Shogun while his wife was expected to give birth and he seemed mentally out of it the entire fight week and checked out after the fight. Plus the first fight wasn't some quick finish but an extended fight that ended in a sub near the end of the third round.

I'd say for the Machida situation the second fight with a quicker finish is more what the op is looking for if the fight order was reversed (not that the ko was a fluke but it was a 1st round ko) a 5 round decision is not some flukey ko or win. I also thought that Dana's talk about the first fight and some fan reaction made Machida overly aggressive in the second fight leading to him getting caught like that. He commented quite a bit about Dana and some others' reactions to the first decision and you could tell it got to Machida.

 

[Richard Fannin]

Eh those first two aren't the best examples (the third is solid).

Forrest was in a pretty shit situation in the rematch and clearly did not want to be there. He was forced to go down to Brazil and fight Shogun while his wife was expected to give birth and he seemed mentally out of it the entire fight week and checked out after the fight. Plus the first fight wasn't some quick finish but an extended fight that ended in a sub near the end of the third round.

Oh boohoohoo, "Forrest wasn't there mentally" then maybe he should have quickly subbed Rua again so he could run to his wife as a winner with a nice bonus and his legacy intact.
Better than, from what you say, basically taking a dive because he wanted out of there... which is an insult to a warrior like Griffin.

In the first fight, Shogun had a bums knee (and got surgeries right after the fight), and couldn't even train so he was totally out of shape. Still took Griffin 3 rounds to finish him.
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Rua had previously undergone surgery on his torn left ACL in September 2007, following a disastrous promotional debut against former 205-pound champion Forrest Griffin at UFC 76 in Anaheim, Calif. Rua also had a follow-up operation on the same knee in 2008.

“The first time he injured his knee was in training, and maybe from years of training, before the Forrest Griffin fight,” said Alonso. “He opted to fight with the injury and ended up having surgery right after. We don’t comment on it very often because we don’t like to take anything away from Forrest.”
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Classy
But sure, the only reason the rematch was a 2min beatdown that ended with Shogun bashing Forrest's face (broken jaw, and broken right foot) in until he signaled to the ref that he was done.

It was all because Griffin didn't have his head in the game. Nothing to do with facing a healthy Mauricio...

Also, Gegard Mousasi vs Uriah Hall
Moose got caught in the first, in a huge upset reminiscent of GSP/Serra 1


Then Hall got tooled in the rematch

No need for a third one