Throwback Shogun v Forrest

[Black Blood]

I hate this fight.

Because I know, for a fact (I know, my opinion), that Shogun is a far better fighter than Forrest Griffin. I know this. But no denying that, for one reason or another, everything came together just right and Forrest Griffin beat Shogun Rua. God dammit lol.

 

[orca]

Yep, Fedor went to America to fight and lose to better competition than those scrubs they had in Pride. Guys like Fabricio Werdum and Dan Henderson.

you forgot to add bigfoot ..and dc would would ragdoll fedor too
damn such a shame we havent seen that one

 

[ferrisjso]

We never saw prime Shogun. He was in his late 20s but thats not REALLY someones prime lol. Shoguns 29 but hes really 40. The mythological version of Shogun in my head would knock Jones out in 1 round via soccer kicks.

Lol. The way the Pride people interact with math has always amused me. Age means whatever would make them right.

Pride fans:Fedors washed cause hes losing, hes not the same
Me like 10 years later:Why hes still winning if he washed back then?
Pride fans:Stop being a hater. Pride never dies.

 

[KO Shotz]

Both Shogun & Rampage underestimated Forest & got beat fair & square due to Forest having a better gameplan & executing.

What really chaps my ass is Rampage vs Shogun 2 never happening in the UFC.

 

[DougieJones]

Didn't Shogun enter the UFC when he was like 29? How is that not in someone's prime?

 

[BarbellzNbacon]

Forrest won FAIR AND SQUARE. I'm a huge Shogun fan but it's wasn't Griffins fault Shogun performed the way he did. LONGEVITY is part of the game and the way Shogun trained at Chute Boxe and the way he fought lead to this steroids or not

 

[KO Shotz]

Forrest won FAIR AND SQUARE. I'm a huge Shogun fan but it's wasn't Griffins fault Shogun performed the way he did. LONGEVITY is part of the game and the way Shogun trained at Chute Boxe and the way he fought lead to this steroids or not

I'm a huge Shogun fan as well, but let's not pretend that Shogun was washed up or complete trash during the time of the Forest fight. I mean he did go on afterwards to become UFC champion while beating Machida when no one had Machida figured out.

 

[BowserJr]

Miraculously just about every PRIDE star was instantly out of their prime as soon as they stepped for in America. Or got staph

Weird that the same happened to all the UFC stars from the same period

 

[Thepaintbucket]

Didnt Shogun ruptured his ACL prior to that fight and then again two more times between Liddell match up and after Lyoto 2? Wouldn't surprise me if he's been under the knife at least 6-7 times by now

He gassed out in the Forrest fight and looked even worse against senior citizen Coleman. After that performance I thought he was done for.

 

[Cowboy Kurt Angle]

It’s really a shame that we couldn’t see half the guys from PRIDE fight in UFC in their prime

 

[BowserJr]

Rewatching the first fight it is pretty obvious even before cardio becomes a factor that Shogun is in a bad state, he looks incredible slow and immobile even compared to the second fight where he was well past his best.

I think you see the same issues in the 2nd Coleman fight AND The Jones fight, both of which is came from from ACL surgery quickly(18 months for Coleman but that was TWO ACL surgeries). People want to play up the Jones fight as this amazing show of dominance but really its 4 mins of fairly mild top control which has Shogun badly gassed in less than a round and then Jones just plays with his food for another 10 mins.

The ironic thing is I think this ended up fooling Dana and Co quite a bit, the Coleman fight I STRONGLY suspect they watched that and though Shogun was done when they booked him against Chuck trying to get Liddell a big name win to boost him back up only to meet a Shogun in far better form with more time to train post ACL surgery. The same in the Forrest rematch as well, Shogun getting destoryed by Jones the UFC probably felt this was a winnable fight to boost Forrest back up and again it blew up in their face with Shogun coming in better form.

Dude that's exactly what I thought when watching all those fights. It's funny to me how many times the opposite of what the UFC seemingly wants is what happens.

Chuck was supposed to beat Rampage
Shogun was supposed to beat Forrest
Rampage was supposed to beat Forrest
Chuck was supposed to beat Shogun
Chuck was supposed to beat Rashad
Machida was supposed to beat Shogun
Forrest was supposed to beat Shogun in the rematch

 

[BowserJr]

I'm a huge Shogun fan as well, but let's not pretend that Shogun was washed up or complete trash during the time of the Forest fight. I mean he did go on afterwards to become UFC champion while beating Machida when no one had Machida figured out.

IMO it's more of a come back from injury story. Not any athletes came back from ACL injuries then. Especially not in combat sports

 

[Mike]

We never saw prime Shogun. He was in his late 20s but thats not REALLY someones prime lol. Shoguns 29 but hes really 40. The mythological version of Shogun in my head would knock Jones out in 1 round via soccer kicks.

Lol. The way the Pride people interact with math has always amused me. Age means whatever would make them right.

Pride fans:Fedors washed cause hes losing, hes not the same
Me like 10 years later:Why hes still winning if he washed back then?
Pride fans:Stop being a hater. Pride never dies.

I mean are you under the impression you made a good point here or something? He managed to beat other extremely washed fighters while being washed himself.

But of course you weirdo Fedor haters think athletes are in their prime until they're like 45 lmao. Even though we've been over this over and over and most guys are absolutely done being elite by their mid thirties. The next generation of hws in Cain and JDS didn't even make it to a decade being on top before they were done. They only got like 5 or 6 years.

 

[KO Shotz]

IMO it's more of a come back from injury story. Not any athletes came back from ACL injuries then. Especially not in combat sports

Agreed. But Shogun was injury prone his entire UFC career but still was an elite fighter, who competed at a high level, who achieved gold & was always at the top of the division & a threat up until his last days of his career.

 

[DougieJones]

End of round 1... I've never seen a fighter run/dive into a reversal before

 

[Black Blood]

IMO it's more of a come back from injury story. Not any athletes came back from ACL injuries then. Especially not in combat sports

To be the best you gotta be good and you gotta be lucky. Knee injuries are the worst, and in most cases, reeeally take the spring out of your step no matter the sport. It's amazing that Shogun came back as good as he did.

There's an alternate universe out there where Shogun Rua had indestructible knees and Jon Jones had multiple tears in his mid 20s...

 

[Cobra 03]

Maybe Forrest was underrated when he fought Shogun. Rua was 12-1 fighting in PRIDE, with his only loss being a freak dislocated elbow incident with Mark Coleman. How damaged could he have been? Lets face it, back then everyone thought PRIDE was so much better than the UFC, and they weren't. There was good fighters in both organizations, and that proved to be accurate when PRIDE folded. Some PRIDE guys had a lot of success in America, like A. Silva, Big Nog, and for awhile, Fedor. Others were good/ average, like Overeem, Lil Nog, Rampage, Shogun and others were flops, like Cro Cop, Gomi, Wandy. My point is, Forrest was a damn good fighter for awhile, not great, but on any given night, he could beat you if you didn't come prepared. No excuses, Forrest was better that night.

 

[BowserJr]

maybe forest was actually a skilled fighter thats why shogun lost to him?
same as fedor losing in america fought better fighters

captain obvious right?
why do you complicate things as always? lmfao

simple as that

Except Shogun murked Forrest in the rematch without active knee injuries

maybe forest was actually a skilled fighter thats why shogun lost to him?
same as fedor losing in america fought better fighters

captain obvious right?
why do you complicate things as always? lmfao

simple as that

Its not complicated. It's reality.

Shogun murked Forrest in the rematch when he had no active knee injury... Forrest was good but we actually saw what a somewhat healthy Shogun could do to him.

The funny thing about Fedor is that all his peers from his era (including UFC champs) started losing when he did our earlier.

Very simple reason they all declined at the same time. Age/mileage. Its not a mystery.

Its actually amazing that while they all clearly declined some still got wins over the next era fighters when those younger fighters were in there primes. Goes to show how good fedor and his era was

 

[r-harper-1]

I’m a big shogun fan …. But He always has defense issues and shit takedown defense…..cage and ufc rules didn’t favour him

 

[BowserJr]

I think you see he's not that badly hurt by it, he's still pretty active from his back, the next 4 mins are basically Jones shutting down various escape/sub attempts and landing a few elbows but by the time he gets back up you can see he's really gassed, the commentary trys to play it has Jones hurting him but it pretty obviously isnt.

Then you basically have another what 9 mins both Shoguns toughness prolonging the fight but also Jones looking to show off quite a bit rather than looking for a faster finish against an opponent not in the fight anymore. Why I question it as this supreme show of dominance by Jones.

What are the bets Dana threatened to strip the belt if Shogun didnt fight Jones ASAP? I wouldnt be supprised at all, he used that trick to get Sylvia to fight Randy when injuried.

You may be onto something. They basically made Rashad give the shot to Jones cuz he was injured. Both Rashad and shogun got injured. They should've just rescheduled. Man I really wanted to see that one too