The Lyoto Machida decision victory of Shogun Rua is quickly becoming one of the most discussed fights in recent memory. While a vast majority of fans believe that Shogun won the fight, it was Machida who exited with the belt around his waist. While the criteria for judging a fight is wide open to interpretation, it is always interesting to hear what one of the parties has to say about it.

Cecil Peoples has been a lightning rod for fans' disdain and, deservedly or not, he is the poster child for rule reform and judging criteria definition.

Click "Read More" to see what Cecil had to say about Saturday's decision!

CageReport has the statement and Cecil Peoples believes that Machida clearly won the fight.

"First of all what you need to understand is that from where the judges are sitting, we get to see things that the fans at home may miss. Mauricio Rua was being aggressive but it wasn't effective aggressiveness which is what we as the judges look for when scoring a fight. The way I saw it, Lyoto was landing the more cleaner and damaging strikes throughout the fight - if you take a look at the judging criteria clean strikes are valued more-so than the quantity of strikes landed. Although Rua threw a lot of low kicks they were not as damaging as Lyotos diverse attack in the earlier rounds which is why I scored the first three rounds for Machida. You have to keep in mind we always the favour the fighter who is trying to finish the fight, and leg kicks certainly don't do that."

Visit their site to see the rest of his statement and what some fans had to say about it.

I can see defending the decision and even explaining your reasoning, but the last thing I would call it was a "clear" win for Machida.

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Comments (4)

UFS Shawn says: 2009-Oct-26 16:29     I just have a big problems with the, "favor the fighter who is trying to finish the fight, and leg kicks don't do that", statement. This guy has seen far more fights than I ever will, first-hand, and I've seen my fair share of fights stopped due to leg kicks and fighters being unable to continue. Even if you don't finish with the leg kick, you slow down your opponent enough to begin to implement other attacks. This was definitely happening in this fight. EVEN IF LEG KICKS DON'T FINISH FIGHTS, taking them sure as hell doesn't either!!  Reply     0     0     Report

Mark Long says: 2009-Oct-26 18:13     Agreed. Man, if the judging crew from Jardine/Liddell were there saturday, they would have given all 5 rounds to Shogun.  Reply     0     0     Report

AutomaticStay362 says: 2009-Oct-26 16:12     1. Judges see more than the fans at home . . . Fair enough 2. Rua wasn't being effective aggressive . . . he hit Machida more times than the combined hits of all the fighters Machida has ever fought. His tactics = effective. Maybe the strikes weren't as effective as the judges would have liked but his aggressiveness was spot on. 3. Rua's low kicks were not as damaging as Lyoto's strikes . . . Maybe, although the kicks forced Machida to change his game plan they weren't doing much more damage than slowing him down. 4. Judges favor the fighter trying to finish the fight . . . First, anyone who says Rua wasn't trying to finish the fight is an idiot. Second, you don't walk into the cage and expect to land a knock out blast on Lyoto Machida or even consider it a good idea. You have to wear him down before you can go for the kill. Third, i think the judges should favor the guy who is winning the fight.  Reply     0     0     Report

Mark Long says: 2009-Oct-26 18:12     Pretty much agree, except, teh one thing that hit me, as the fight was happening. I think if anything we see more on TV than the judges do live. For example, late in the fight, machida came in to Shogun with a fluryy of about 10 punches that put him against the fence and Shogun landed only one counter punch. From across teh cage I'm sure that looked impressive to the judges, but when we were shown the replay on TV, it showed that none of Machida's strikes landed effectively, if at all. In the mean time Shogun's one strike landed solidly and ended the flurry.  Reply     0     0     Report