As I wait to see how this weekends UFC 128 light-heavy weight title fight between Mauricio 'Shogun' Rua (23-4) and Jon 'bones' Jones (13-1 Dq). I believe this will be one of the first fight in UFC history where we see if the evolution of MMA has risen to the point where records ans MMA pedigree are factors. Throughout the emergence of MMA the experience and records of fighters has meant very little in the outcome of bouts, the x factor's of the athletes and the unstructured and often miss understood art off MMA continues to trump the bookies and the records.
The facts of the bout are: Mauricio Shogun is a MMA pedigree, a complete fighter. adjustable tough and season, bred the way only Brazilian fighters are at the moment. he has impressive Ko's in his last few fights marquee names as he has throughout his career so far. He has come up the hard way, facing big name opposition with varied styles and skills. If you follow the records you will see he has handled fighters who are better at individual discipline's than Jones. More Impressive Strikers Cyrille Diabate, Alistair Overeem, Lyoto Machida, Rampage Jackson and Chuck Liddel. Better wrestlers than Jones, Mark Coleman,and Kevin Randalman. And far better Jui Jitsu specialists in Ricardo Arona and Antonio Nougeria. But MMA is not about how good you are at ONE thing, it is about how good you are at EVERYTHING, as shoguns only legitimate losses show to Renato Sobral and Forest Griffin, who despite their flaws are well rounded 'solid' competition for anyone.
The followers of Jone's record will note he has not faced any significant specialists apart from wrestlers, his speciality, who he did everything else better than and wrestled them sufficiently to dominate namely Matt Hamill, Vladimir Matushenko and Ryan Bader. The well rounded fighters he has faced were the limited Stephen Bonnar and constant underachiever Brandon Vera. He has had less fights been fed more opponents and never fought for a title.
Based on these factors it is very hard to place a bet on Jon Jones, however MMA traditionally has not been affected by this type of logic, and this bout in particular presents a great deal of x factors to consider. Shogun has been injured with crippling knee operation over the last few years, this is obviously against him, he was man handled for whatever reason by Forest Griffin which undoubtedly the game plan Jones will have his mind set on if the stand up is not easy pickings for him. More favourable to Jon Jones is his athleticism, unorthodox style and extreme reach, enough to cause any fighter problems if left unchecked. He is also undefeated, which means there is no pattern in his mind of how to lose, and no proven blueprint in Shoguns to beat him.
My prediction: In my opinion the fight based upon the above factors is even. There is however one and most important observation I made while watching Jones Vs Bader. I believe I saw Jones nervous and hesitant for the first two or three minutes facing Bader, I believe the fight changed at the exact point Bader took a backwards step and almost imperceivably backed down, Jones sensing this imediatly threw a head kicked and the rest is history. It was at this point I saw what i believe to be scared Jone become brave, a sin that Cus D'amato warned his fighters about, "Never let a scared fighter get brave, because the you will have a problem" shogun wont have this problem. If indeed Jones's skill is greater than Rua's we may not see it come to fruition as Shoguns 'Will' shall overcome it. If what I saw was in fact the situation then I think this fight will be a case of a boy in there with a man, a true professional.
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