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Shogun actually got a lot better in his UFC career to be honest. His boxing improved ten fold.
From the Liddell fight to the second Hendo fight was his prime.
Hendo took his chin which was one of his best weapons. He took shots to give them.
In pride he was sloppy but he was so durable and athletic people couldn't handle it. In his UFC run he developed into a technical mt sniper with a beautiful flow. It was cool to see. He was a brawler that learned from Wand at the end of the day. Wand is super underrated too he's the best lhw ever imo
I'd say in Pride he was more aggressive than he was sloppy, always on the front foot chasing opponents down standing but he was pretty accurate as well. After the couple of ACL injuries I think you saw him shift style, reduced his focus on grappling(which I'd geuss caused a lot of the injuries ala Cain) and became a more technical/patent MT fighter standing.
The problem he had IMHO was that after the 3rd ACL injury he started to loose his mobility, he couldn't pull off the style he did vs Chuck and Machida anymore with the rapid forward/backward movement and had to stand toe to toe again. You watch those matches and its the rushing in/out that really makes the style work.