5. To Draw or Not to Draw?
I scored the Dan Henderson vs Shogun Rua uber fight in favor of Rua.
I’ll continue on by saying that I had no problem with the official outcome siding with Henderson 48-47 on all cards, with Henderson winning the first three rounds and Shogun the final two. And I’ll go a step further and say, that as I sat in my seat at “The Tank” in San Jose, I fully expected Bruce Buffer to waltz into the cage and announce that yet another epic main event battle in 2011 had come in on the judge’s scorecards as a draw.
While I scored the first round for Shogun, I can certainly see how you could see if for Henderson, as both fighters had the other totally rocked. But what cannot be debated is the dominant manner in which Shogun won round 5.
He was in mount for over 4 minutes and Dan Henderson did absolutely no offensive damage whatsoever. He wiggled and squirmed just enough to keep the fight from getting stopped. The case for a10-8 round was a strong one and, had I not already given Shogun the first round (and therefore the win), I would have gone 10-8 to avoid giving him the loss.
This made me realize that it’s not how you judge, and it’s why judging is so damn difficult. A 10-8 round is a 10-8 round, no matter how it alters the outcome of the fight.
So it makes me wonder, did the judges from Saturday night do the same thing I did – take a look down at their scorecards and see that had they scored the final frame a 10-8, that it would have resulted (at least on their card) in a dreaded draw?
Considering the amount of 10-8 rounds that have been scored this year, I’d be inclined to say they did.
6. The Best Fight of All Time?
I’ve been to a lot of MMA events. Over the last 5+ years of traveling to cover this sport, I’m positive I’ve never witnessed another fight with so much drama, action, twists and turns as the one Dan Henderson and Shogun Rua put on this past Saturday night at UFC 139.
Every time you thought someone had the fight wrapped up, the other battled back, making you believe he had a chance to finish the fight. There were knockdowns, submission attempts, takedowns, ground and pound, and even a little blood. Okay, there was a lot of blood.
But it was everything an MMA fight should be. It was a “Dana will take care of you for a long time” type of fight.
I know many will have others as their all-time favorite, but for my money, Hendo/Shogun will go down as my personal “Greatest of All Time.”