– Dana White said during the UFC 104 post-show press conference that he thought Mauricio “Shogun” Rua won the main event, not Lyoto Machida.
“I thought ‘Shogun’ won the fight,” White said.
White said he was displeased with the result and that there will be a rematch.
“I think there will be a rematch,” White said. “I talked to both of them, and they both agreed to a rematch.”
The Machida/Shogun fight ended up engulfed in controversy as it proved difficult to score due to both fighters showing a lot of patience and picking their shots. White mentioned that he wants to see fighters be more aggressive and not wait around so much.
“One of the things I always tell these guys is ‘You can’t leave it in the hands of the judges,'” White said. “You just can’t do it. But at the end of every round, neither one of the guys went after it. Neither guy tried to steal the round. You saw it a lot in boxing – and these guys have got to learn it in MMA – is when that 30 seconds is left, go after it and try to steal that round. Neither one of them did it throughout the fight.”
White said that going round-by-round, he had Machida winning the fight, but that it was very close.
“When you go round-by-round and you score the fight, I actually had Machida winning the fight up until the third round,” White said. “The first round could have gone either way. I gave the second and third to Machida. And then I gave the fourth and fifth to ‘Shogun.’ Assuming that ‘Shogun’ won the first, fourth and fifth, he wins the fight. I knew it was going to be a tough one. I knew it was going to be strategic. It was everything I thought it would be, except they should have pressed more and gone after it at the end of the rounds and tried to really pull out the rounds and make it easier to score. It was a tough fight to score.”
White also said that he thinks the rematch will be the next fight for both fighters, and that he wants to see it as a fight fan and as a businessman.
“That’s me the fight fan (and) the businessman,” White said. “Whatever you want to call me, I want to see this fight again.”
