MMA Fighting - Remembering The Legendary Career Of Mauricio 'Shogun' Rua Before He Makes His Final Walk | DAMN! They Were Good

Episode Date: January 18, 2023

DAMN! They Were Good celebrates the careers of the most exciting and influential fighters in MMA history, and on the first episode of 2023, the MMA Fighting crew remembers the best of Mauricio "Shogun" Rua as he prepares for the final fight of his incredible career. Entering into MMA in 2002 as the little brother of Murilo "Ninja" Rua, Shogun quickly made a name for himself with one of the most legendary runs ever in 2005, winning the Pride Middleweight Grand Prix with career-defining performances against Quinton "Rampage" Jackson, Antonio Rogerio Nogueira, Alistair Overeem, and Ricardo Arona. Rua then joined the UFC in 2007 where after some initial struggles, he was able to capture the UFC light heavyweight title from Lyoto Machida, and he did all of this before turning 30 years old. In honor of Shogun's impending retirement, host Jed Meshew is joined by MMAFighting's Shaheen Al-Shatti and Guilherme Cruz. Follow Jed Meshew @JedKMeshew Follow Shaun Al-Shatti @ShaunAlShatti Follow Guilherme Cruz @guicruzzz Subscribe: http://goo.gl/dYpsgH Check out our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/u8VvLi Visit our playlists: http://goo.gl/eFhsvM Like MMAF on Facebook: http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z Follow on Twitter: http://goo.gl/nOATUI Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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The Vox Media Podcast Network. Hello everybody. My name is Jedmishu. I'm a writer for MMAFighting.com. It's a great website, and this is the damn they were good podcast. It's been quite some time since you last heard our dulcet tones, but with 2023 kicking off, we had to bring it back, especially because this week something grand, something magical is happening. This Saturday, UFC 283, goes down in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The UFC is back in Brazil after a three-year hiatus, but we're not here to talk about that event in general. We're here to talk about one man who will be at that event, a legend of the sport who will be at that event, a legend of the sport,

will be making his walk for the final time. Maricio Shogun, whoa. This fight week, last Shogun fight week, and so we had to. We had to take a walk down memory lane about the highs and lows of one of my favorite all-time fighters.

And so joining me to take that trip, two of my favorite colleagues at M.M.A.fighting.com website. The best damn writer in M.M.A. Shihina Oshati. And the Brazilian beast, the new king of Rio, Guillame Cruz, Fellas, how we doing?

I'm feeling great, ready for another fight week in a long, long time. We miss this crazy, crazy liner work of ours, and especially such a big week, two title fights. And the last night of Shogun and the MMA fight is going to be, after watching him fight a few times, watching him fight for the last time, It's going to be a special one. It for sure is. I'm hoping that it's going to be a happy special and not a sad special.

I hope so. Yes. Because as we'll get into it, this hasn't, Shogun's career hasn't been the heights and glory it was that made us all love him. But we get one more and at the minimum, him coming out in Rio. I think that is going to be a freaking scene. It's going to be emotional, man. I mean, like, we, we, how long have we been riding with this man, right? Like, this has been someone who has been in at least my life, pretty much the entirety of,

of my knowledge of MMA. Like, my entire MMA fandom has more or less started and begun with Shogun Hu, and everything that was going on in pride around that time, 2004, 2005, little old Sean Elshadhi in high school, just figuring out that, like, seeing these streams. from these Japanese shows and sort of figuring out all of this and being like, dude, what am I watching? Like, this man has been 40 years old, seemingly for a decade. Like, it's crazy that he is frankly still going.

But it will. I feel like it's going to be a very emotional scene when we see this on Saturday. Because, like, this is someone who has simultaneously felt like he should have left a long time ago, a long time ago. But yet, the fact that he has remained and more or less kind of, like, done well, like, it's It's a very weird juxtaposition of like, I don't think you stayed too long, but you kind of stayed too long, but you didn't type of thing. So like you've earned this moment.

Like if nothing else, you have earned this moment to come out. And again, the new king of real, last king of real, whatever we want to call him. Like, it's going to be unbelievable. Yeah, man. It's, uh, you nailed it in that he, he did it but didn't stay too long. It's super weird. I have a ton of notes as we get into this. His career is so fascinating in retrospect,

because who originally pitched this was like, all right, it's going to be his last one. Seems like a good time to do a damn, you know, coincide, celebrate. And then I spent all morning rewatching Shogun fights. And I did not intend to. I intended to, you know, hit some of the highlights. And I was talking with you in pre-production, Gene.

It was like, yeah, I, you know, I turned on the 05 run. It's like, oh, got to check this out again. And then suddenly five hours later, I'm just knee deep in all things Shogun. And it has been such a fascinating journey because he did it. Like he's still winning fights over guys who are relatively there. But at the same time, your eyes don't lie when you're watching him fight. Now, it's like, this is not the same man.

And so it's, it is a very, very strange spot. So I want to start here since you did touch on it. And I want to start with Guy. Guy, what was your first exposure to Shogun? Like, how did Shogun come in your life? I honestly don't remember, like, having my first Shogun experience. Because I wasn't an M.M.A. fan before I started working for Tatarmi magazine in Brazil. And when I started, it was just like three months after he lost to Forrest Griffin.

And it was like a shock at the time, but I didn't get that real impression because I didn't know that Shuggan was that good. So I didn't watch a fight, light, and all that stuff. And then it took me a full year to watch him fight. And he was fighting Mark Coleman. We're going to talk about the Colby fight. It wasn't a good fight. It was just such, I mean, by that time, I was already stood. with the MMA, like, go back and watch his fights.

It was so depressing watching him fight, Colman like that, and then fighting Chuck Liddell, and then the Liotto fight. So it wasn't good. It wasn't a good way to introduce myself to live Shogun fights. But with time, I mean, had plenty of opportunities to see, like, glimpse of the great fighter that once became champion in pride, and then went out to become championing the UFC as well. But that's what's a fascinating part of his story to me is you are incredibly not alone

in being a guy who came to Shoggan after the forest fire. I mean, particularly fans nowadays, you know, like there are fans who didn't come to Connor. And so fans who didn't join Till Connor have no concept. At least, you know, if you had gotten into the UFC around the time you did, you know, oh, what is that, 10, 2010, 2011, something like that, you can still, there was still the high point of Shogun to come, you know, of, all right, he is going to win the title over Lioto.

He's going to have some of those performances, but even at that time, we're talking 10 years ago, he was still up and down. You could have, you could be a deeply invested fan, a fan for over a decade and be like, I never saw prime shogun and this man is only 41 years old it is not i didn't see prime hoist gracey or whatever it is a guy who is still competing today and that's why he is so fascinating to me in this regard now i didn't really think about it until until i went back and it was hit by some of this so jeanne what about you i know we were talking off air one of your favorite fighters one of the guys who sort of got you into fandom what what was it do you remember the first shoggan

fight you saw? I don't remember specifically what the first one was, but it was that 2005 run. At some point during that run, that was when I jumped on. And we were, Jed, we were talking about it off air before we started of you're 100% right in a lot of what you're saying there because you watch his UFC career, even early in the UFC, right? Like even title winning Shogun, it is such a vastly different fighter than the fighter who was in pride. I had not watched, I had not dove back into the pride vault in a pretty long time for

Shogun. And like you, I sort of got caught down a rabbit hole. I was like, oh, I'm going to just watch a few of these 2005 fights. Then I ended up just watching like a ton of them because it's just like this, it's such a, like it's the night and day. It's just a completely different person. Like the UFC stripped away a lot of his best weapons and his best weapons are some of the most creative, extreme violence that you can imagine. Awesome. Just fucking awesome. Stomps and soccer kicks

to the max from this guy. Stomp's soccer kicks, tie clinch. Those three things you were just not escaping from in Shogun and Pride and the creativity with which he would wield all of this. And frankly, the not give a shittness that he would wield all of it with,

of just kind of throwing stuff out there, throwing tornado kicks, throwing 360 stuff like, none of it any reason most of it didn't land but he's just kind of out there doing stuff just like this young kid from shootbox doing stuff and it's somehow working and at every possible moment he gets you in any position where you're grounded or you're just like kind of in a vulnerable spot bro you're getting a soccer kick to the face or you're getting a flying stomp to the face and it's just like coming fast in rapid succession and you you forget because it was so long ago just what like young

early 20s Shogun really looks like in why there was so much absurd hype around him when the UFC bought Pride, right? Because I remember it so vividly when that happened of, oh man, we're going to get Crow Cop. We're going to get Fadour, which obviously we didn't get Fadoor, but like we're going to get crow cop. We're going to get Fadour. We're going to get Vandolay. We're going to get all these guys. But in the real hardcore conversation, it was all about Shogun. Like, here's this guy coming off this incredible, incredible run who like you guys will, You do not understand the violence that's about to come to North America from this guy. And he's still so young.

He was only 25 when he went to the UFC. Like, that's crazy to me. I know we'll revisit stats later on in the show. But just that stat alone is- As nuts. Frankly, bananas, because you could have given me a bunch of different choices. And I would have never guessed 25 years old. I would have said, like, oh, he's probably like 28, 29.

Nah, 25 years old. Like, what this man accomplished pre-25 is legendary. He was already a legend by the time he came to the UFC at age 25, and the fact that he was able to add to that and really has continued to add to that with pretty crazy consistency over the last decade or so. Absolute legend. And also, sorry, you're probably hearing my son on the background.

He's my day on whatever he wants. He's very excited about the legend of Shogun. It's totally okay. Yeah, we're going to get into the Stombs and Soccer Kicks thing because that's a really pivotal part of the story. But just on the 25 thing, like right now, if we, I don't have to make this hypothetical, I could drudge up a specific example, but I don't have one offhand. But if right now we had a 25-year-old come over from KSW or whatever,

if Roberto Soldage, who is not 25, came, signed with the UFC instead of with one, everybody would be losing their mind about what this 28-year-old hyper-violent dude is about to do in the UFC and then to look at the career Shogun had after, which is not bad by any stretch, but is not at all what anybody envisioned at the time. It's, dude, he's such a fascinating guy. And I didn't realize it until I dove into this. It didn't strike me how much of his late career. late career isn't even the right term because it's been a decade it's not even it's just like middle

shogun career it's so weird uh before we hop into the categories do have one last question this one is specifically for gee though and it's you know had you on the show before talk about some some fantastic fighters tell me where maricio shogun who are rates in the brazilian pantheon because I genuinely have no idea in this conversation. It has certainly from the outside perspective, and part of, I think, the weird facet of his legacy is I identify him so much as a pride fighter. And even though he was probably better than Vandale, Vandale is still the same camp.

And Vandrle is the pride fighter. So he is still somewhat in Vandale's shadow in that regard. And I don't know if that filters over into just the Brazil. kind of entity as a whole or what? So how does Shogun rank in the Brazilian MMA Pantheon? Shogun is a legend, no doubt about it, but he's not like at the top of the top. Like, he's still behind like the likes of Jose Aldo and as Silver, a big nod, Victor Belfort, because like a few things like, first, he's, he doesn't like doing much media.

Like he doesn't, he's not a fan of interviews and stuff like that. He lives in Kuditiba, like it's not close from Rio and São Paulo fighters from this area. They, they tend to get more media attention because it's the center of the country in terms of media, stuff like that. So, but I mean, it's for an MMA fan, no doubt about this is a legend. but casuals like not many people know show them he fought a few times in Rio for the UFC he's unbeating fighting in Rio he fought in Ljubljia

such a wild place like I know you all love this name Ubelangia is a fantastic city yeah it's not a terrible fight we're going to talk about that fight I hate that fight yes I mean that that skateboard is a real son of a bitch I'm out of control with the skateboard. I can't let the people bring that in there, man. But yeah, he's a legend of that about it,

but he's not like the top five all time in terms of recognition from people's side of our hardcore bubble. And you know that? I think that makes sense, certainly from my perspective on it, because that's how it feels and that's so weird when I think of kind of just what he is as of, fighter historically. So,

but we'll, well, now we can hop into the rest of it because there are many things to talk about with Shogun. And this is one of those where I thought I was going to have an easy time with certainly some of these categories. And it ended up being way, way harder as I got into it. But before we hop into our categories,

for those who maybe came to MMA a decade ago and don't know all the best things about Shogun, a very brief recap for you, he began his career in 2002. Mecca World Valley Tudu. And when he started, he was primarily known as Ninja's younger brother, which is super weird. When you think about how those careers went, I bet most people who are like deep MMA fans don't even know who Ninja who is anymore. And then he pretty quickly was his own dude.

Can I jump in just very quickly start to interrupt you? I have to just submit to the panel. Ninja and Shogun, all time, all time. I'm great nickname for tandem for brothers, right? Like, Shogun's legendary. I can't even tell you the amount of- Shalun is their other brother. He just didn't fight.

Shalun is also sick. Dude, I can't tell you how many, I'm sure if I went back to whatever I was doing back then, whatever video games I was playing back in 2004 or five, there are probably a lot of characters that I named Shogun just because of this guy. Like, Ninja and Shogun, all-time legendary nicknames. you have to throw that out there.

Incredible. It's a great point. It really is. You know your nickname's good when it's just your name. When it becomes your name, you're just Shogun Huah. He's just Shoggan in Brazil. Yeah. You don't even say about issue.

You just Shogun. Yeah. It's really, really great work going on at shootbox out there between the axe murder and all of it. Like, it's just great stuff going on over there with the nickname. Yeah. In Brazil, it's not the ex-murder like Brazil. We don't call him that. In Brazil, it's Cachorro-Locco.

Like, mad dog, crazy dog. I was to say, isn't that crazy something? Okay, mad dog. Yeah, mad dog, crazy dog. I maintain that the axe murder is maybe the greatest nickname in the history of the small. You can use that. You can use it. So I'm okay with it.

But yeah, he joins Pride a couple years after his debut, and it's off to the races. He wins the 2005 Pride Middleweight Grand Prix. We're going to talk a lot about that coming up. And then Pride gets acquired. He goes to the UFC in 07. and then that's where he is somewhat surprisingly spent most of his career. All told, he won a ton of fights in the UFC, went 12 and won in Pride, four performance of the night awards in the UFC, four fight of the nights,

including the 2011 fight of the year with Dan Henderson. That fight was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2018, so this is, I think, our third UFC Hall of Famer on Dam, and Shogun will himself just be inducted. into the Hall of Fame. In the near future, you can only assume, given what he has meant to this sport, this Saturday will be his 42nd career fight, 24 of them in the UFC. So depending on how that goes, you know, we'll see what his overall record is, but 42 fights is a good, healthy, good, healthy career. And now it comes to an end. And when it comes to an, as it comes to an end, our awards come to a beginning. And we start, as always, the Mount Rushmore. You have four fights.

Now I'm going to be honest with you guys. I thought this would be easy. When I was doing this in my head initially, I was like, screw it. I'm just going to go with the entire 2005 run because it's a legendary run, you know, one of the two or three best years any fighter has ever had in the history of the sport. He's the fighter of the year hands down. And all of those fights are important. All of those fights are great and matter.

And I want to do it. And then as I dove into this, as I got more involved, it was like, I can't, I can't, I just can't pick all four of these. There's too much other shit. I have, I think, eight fights in front of me. I think we're going to have some overlap. I'm going to give you my four, and then we can talk about y'alls,

and we can throw out other honorable mentions. My four, though. I am starting the Quentin Jackson, Pride Total Elimination, 2005. It was the beginning of the legendary 05 run, as is coming out party. I mean, you had several wins in pride beforehand. And that was the first fight that I stood up and was like, oh, this dude's for real.

Because I became a fan 0304 right around then. And I got into the forums pretty quickly, you know, doing the underground Sherdog thing and knew what pride was but wasn't like super deep. And then the rampage just thrashing. That was all anyone was talking about on Sherdog. That was the truth. So that was his coming out party. that's mine. I also, that's my start.

I will also say my other point on this fight, holy shit, we talk about MMA corners not throwing in the towel today. Rampage Jackson got murdered. Like, as I was rewatch, was like, dude, they could stop this at any point. And then there were three more minutes of Shoguneeing and stomping and kicking his face off.

That fight is insane. It is almost obscene to watch right now. Like, it's so explosive, it's so violent. And the way it ends, right, of knocking him out through, like, Shogun knocking Rampage out through the ropes. It's just soccer kicks to the face. Like, all of it, like, man, you feel bad for Rampage.

At one point, Rampage, like, is clearly covering his body and yelled something to his corner. And Boss is, like, his ribs are broken. They, and it just keeps going. and Shogun just kept hitting him. And you have to think at this point, Rampage, in the two years prior to this, has lost to Vandalis Silva twice, basically by the same exact way, by the knees, the Thai knees. And then should have lost the ninja.

And Shogun comes out, does the exact same strategy, but somehow in like a more brutal way because he's just so, again, opportunistic with these soccer kicks and stumps. Like the moment you say soccer kicker stomp's in pride, Shogun is the person that flashes to my mind, Because I feel like he utilized them to the best of anybody, and they were just the main weapon in his tool set. And I would love to, I've never actually counted it. I'm sure there are stats up there for this fight. I would just love to know how many tinies that Shogun landed on Rampage

during this however minute many fight. Because it is just brutal to watch. You were watching the soul get slowly sucked out of this man. That's on my top four as well. It has to be. That's in your four as well. I will also note that there's Quentin Rampage Jackson after the fight, and I don't remember how late was like, yeah, that's the best dude I've ever fought.

And it makes sense, because when you look at him fight, it's like, yeah, that dude is the best dude. You ever fought that guy is something for real. Guy, did this make your four? No. It didn't. Okay. That is impressive, but didn't make it. Then we can move on.

The second one, I feel like this is going to be in everybody's four. It's the Antonio Rogarian-Dogera Pride Critical Countdown 2005 fight. It's the fight of the year for 2005. And I mean, you've heard they ended up having a trilogy well after the fact. They fought a couple more times in the UFC. Also, depressingly good fights considering most than were at their time. But, I mean, so this is one that I feel like more recent fans will know just because of those other fights. And part of the build for those other fights was talking.

about how singularly awesome the first one was. But that fight still holds up, man. I watched it this morning. It's insane. Like there is the shifts in momentum just back and forth constantly. No, Garo boxing the dude's ears off, but can't kind of keep with just the youthful exuberance of Shogun. The grappling exchanges are awesome.

Everything about that fight was so damn good. And it was honestly better than I remembered it. When I went back and rewatched, I was like, this can't be as good as I remember. remember because in general like when you watch older fights you're like oh this just isn't as good it's like no this is still a plus level mma and it's awesome so the first nog fight at critical countdown 05 i'm assuming that that is in both of your lists it is so i think this is almost an oversight for me because it's not and it was just it's purely wow it's i think that's an oversight it's a bad call because you're right there was just too many and at a certain point it was

How many pride fights am I trying to fit in here? Because I also have, well, because I also have the Ricardo Arona fight. I'm not trying to step over. Oh, okay. Other people might have. I have that one. But to me, that him winning the GP, it's like I can't, I need to put the GP win in there. The rampage was when I first became aware of him, my believer.

That was my first big memory with him. I can't have three pride fights there when this guy only fought in pride for like five years or four years. So I think it's an oversight. I mean, you could. But no, that's fair. So we'll, I'll kick it to y'all to talk about the Arona one in a second. I will say I intentionally left Arona off of this one because I'm going to talk about him later on in the show. But let's just use that as the segue for, for you, either of you as you both have the Arona Guy.

Tell me why the Arona one makes it because that fight is, it's probably his best overall performance in like his career. That fight was amazing. Yeah, I have that fight because like you can't just throw the whole tournament on this list and that's just like the icing on the cake. He just destroying the biggest rival of his teammate, Madela Silva, and he just ran through him. It's sad that we didn't get like both at their peak performance because Arona had a, I mean, a much harder semifinal.

Much harder. Yeah, but it is funny to say that because if you go back, Arona's semifinal was against Alice Overeign. Yeah, it's not like some of those pride semis where it's like, okay, well, you get the Takata fight or whatever. It's like, no, you're fighting Alastor freaking ovary. Yeah, and just destroy him. And then he took Arona and I almost murder him.

So, and that, that means a lot in Brazil because Arona is, Arona is a big in hate in Brazil. Like people to do these days still love him. Some people still think he's coming back to fight. And, uh, but yeah, that's, I mean, that's, that's, that has to be on his top five, top four list. Okay. Uh, Sheen, do you have anything?

to add to Ghee's assessment of why Arona is in his final, his Mount Rushmore. No, I mean, to me, I agree. I think Arona was one of the best all-around overall performances by Shogun. Also, again, just that whole year, right? Like, that whole 2005 still holds up as one of the greatest all-time years for any fighter ever. Like, it was just utterly ridiculous in the moment, and it's even better in retrospect. But I will say, just to give more credit to what you were saying with the Little Nog pick. I think that's a good pick because two things. One, right?

To me, Shogun's iconic photo or iconic moment comes from that fight, the flying punch that he lands in that fight, that is an incredible image, just in MMA history. And I think that's been like at various times in my life, like my background on my computer or whatever, just that flying punch he lands on Little Nog. Also, too, like I think Little Nog is one of those guys that kind of, got screwed over by MMA's lack of a history, like history keepers, like record keepers.

Because I think if you asked 90% of fans today, like what's your opinion of Little Nog? Half of them would have no actual clue who you're talking about. And the other half would just think that you're talking about the old guy that had some pretty terrible fights in the UFC and like fought like once every couple years in the UFC. Like they wouldn't have any real recognition or understanding of how obscenely good Littlenog was and the absolute bangers that he put

on for so long. That's the problem you have when your brother's is fantastic and wins in wins titles everywhere. Yeah. Like little nice of all the time. We'll always be on the shadow of his brother because Big Knock won the UFC belt,

the pride belts, and he got nothing. Like he had, he has fantastic wins. Legend, but he's never going to live up to what his brother was able to do at the same time. So, it's crazy. Honestly.

this was one of the things that struck me and maybe this is me getting way too uh rightery but it was like little nog and shogun feel like two sides of of the same coin because i mean look shogun's older brother he ends up far surpassing him but talked earlier in some ways vandali silver is like a surrogate brother not maybe not personally but in the view of fans right he he was the shoot the box guy and Vandale's shadow kind of hung over a lot of Shogun's career, but you look at, you know, the stuff you're saying, Shaheen, there's a whole group of fans you don't know, you're right. Then those same fans wouldn't know Shogun,

but for the Leodomachito win, you know, like that probably saves him from existing in a very similar space to Little Nog. It's just, they're very... And the Hendo fights, I would say. You think that that's a... that's enough to define, like, to be different? I could buy that. I think it would be memorable if nothing else.

That's true. Those two have just have a very, their careers felt very intertwined when I went back and rewatched it in a way that I didn't think it was the case kind of real time where it felt more after the fact. So yeah, I'm cool with the Erona one. Like I said, I left it off for a very specific reason. my next one. I cheated

because I feel that this is an appropriate cheat. I have taken both of the Leodomachita fights at UFC 104 and UFC 113 because the one you would pick would probably be 113. It's the one where he wins the UFC light heavyweight belt. You know, that's a pivotal moment in his career, one of the two big highs. But if you just talked about that without the context of 104, I don't think it, it's not the same.

Like, 113 meant a lot, but it meant a lot in part because of what happened at 104. And frankly, I want to talk about them together because there's such different fights. It's incredibly fun to go rewatch them. Because 104, he should have beaten Machita. No bones about it. Went back and rewatched it. He absolutely should have won that fight. Bad decision.

Legitimate robbery. Absolutely a tall. total legitimate robbery. You go back and rewatch it's like, there's no way he didn't win at least three, if not four, and you could make a case for all five rounds. I do think he lost the second,

but he very clearly won, one three or four rounds there. But you go back and watch it. And that, I remember at the time that being so weird, because this was the Machita era. Joe Rogan had anointed us, welcome to the Machita era.

And Shogun was washed. We had already thought Shogun was doomed. Like, was screwed. his performances hadn't been that good. He got a title fight off a win over Chuck Liddell, which aged like milk at this point, had looked bad against Mark Coleman and lost to Forrest Griffin,

like, okay, this is the new dude. And he comes out and he fights so different than really we'd ever seen him fight before. It was so tactical and smart. And like, in my head, I was like, this is kind of like Carlos Connett fighting Nick Diaz. It's like, this isn't what we expected at all, and it's really smart, and he is beating this man's ass, and then he doesn't get paid off for it. And the second fight, he just fights like himself, and he knocks him out in the first round.

It's the funniest thing to go watch. It's like, you could have come and done the kick-heavy tactical gameplay, and you're like, nah, man, I'm just going to be me. And being him was all it needed. Came out and knocked him out. In the first round was awesome. So I cheated and put them both. I'm going to assume that winning the UFC belt managed to make the Mount Rushmore for you, gentlemen. Yes, it does, but I agree with you.

You can't just look at the second fight and ignore the first one. It's part of the, it's part of my phone start talking out of nowhere. you have to look to that fight taking consideration what the first one was you can't just ignore that and what he did to someone that was looked at as unbeatable like this tricky game that you can't

like solve this puzzle and he just went there like leg kicked him to death in the first one and then went to this to the second fight and just murder him it was brutal and a beautiful to watch. It was awesome. Shaheen, where are you about on this one?

It's so funny looking back in retrospect because that, you're right, that first fight was one of the great robberies of that era. And it felt like such an injustice in the moment, right? Because especially if you're a fan of pride, you're watching Shogun struggle a little bit early in his UFC run. He has that big disappointment events, Forrest Griffin, in his first fight. It felt like it wasn't going to happen. and then all of a sudden, in the middle of the Machita era, as we said, this was supposed to be some dynasty.

Like old school Shogun kind of comes out a little bit, a little bit, not new school, like, right? Like, he was a little bit more refined and puts on this incredible performance. And you just, no one expected it at that moment. And it's just, oh, my God, he did it. Like, he actually did it. He's going to get the UFC title and he doesn't get it. And you look back in that moment, I think a lot of judges struggled with how to score Leoto Machita. Like, people didn't understand really what they were.

were watching with Leotto and so they kind of just gave him the benefit of the doubt in a lot of these fights or or vice versa. Like he just don't want fights. Yeah. That's really like it's just don't want fights. Yeah. But then that second one comes and it's just like the ultimate retribute, like revenge, right? It's the ultimate like, thank you, MMA gods for actually doing the right thing type

of moment where Shogun can get this violent, violent finish. And you're right. It was very much old school Shogun coming in and being Shogun again. to get this finish. That's definitely on my Mount Rushmore. I mean, you win the UFC title. That's going to go on the Mount Rushmore for me. I want to note just because Guy said it,

you know, this guy, Leota was unbeatable. I distinctly remember this is long before I'm working. I'm a fan. And I think I was emailing with Jordan Breen of formerlyfiredaar.com. And I was like, I send a fan, like a fan, question or whatever to like answer on the on a radio show's like how do you beat leotumachita like should you just bear crawl at him because you can't outstrike this dude because it wasn't that he was just unbeatable was like if you're going to beat him you just have to take him down his karate is too

it's too good and then show was like nah boy tie baby let's go it was fies awesome so that's my third rounding out my mount rushmore uh i went chalk all the way down frankly dan henderson in UFC 139. You know, his fights with Hindo became legendary. This was the fight of the year for 2011, inducted in the UFC Hall of Fame. Again, as with the Nog fight, when we rots to this morning, I was like, this can't hold up to what I think it was. And it just did.

It was still sick. It was still so awesome. And frankly, it felt a lot like the Nog fight. Like the beats felt very similar of the just massive changes in momentum. And, you know, maybe this is reductive, but Shogun just wanting it more at the end. And I think Shogun gets robbed. That fight is at minimum a draw. He ends up losing a decision.

But like that felt a lot like the first knock fight. And it's just incredible that what's going on in that fight, the mixing of the martial arts, much to A.K. Lee's dismay. It was fantastic. So that rounds out my Mount Rushmore. is that on either of yours? Yeah, that's on my list as well. It has to be. I kind of thought that way.

So we're going to have a very similar amount Rushmore. Guy, let's go to you on this because Shaheen is dealing with his son right now. And it's incredibly fun to watch. You guys can't see this, but it's the best. He is trying so hard to throw me off my game. And it's kind of working. I'm not going to lie. He has thoughts that he.

wants to share about Shogun and you're just not letting him. He wants to be a member of him fighting. Honor a member. So, Guy, he talked to me about the Dan Henderson fight. That was, that was legendary. Like,

Shogun was, again, was, we all saw him, like, I was there when, when he fought John Jones. It was my,

my first UFC live in New Jersey and it was sad to watch like five seconds five seconds in and I knew he he he would lose a five like five seconds John Jones lens of flying knee I mean damn it's a matter of time before he just knocks him out and then like he fought in Rio force of gripping like destroyed him the revenge like beautiful beautiful scenes watching real and then I mean is he bad back. Like, he's that good, but John Jones is on another level. And he fights Dan Hanson is just an incredible war. Like you said, I think that he didn't lose a fight. He should have been a drawl. At least, if not just a Shogun win. Yeah. But that was like, like, that was a fantastic

moment for him to get U.S. fans to learn him, you know. He showed like he had the Little Rock fights now in the UFC for the American audience against an American legend to see how good he was. Like people that didn't get his best in pride was getting like a little taste of what he can do, his heart. I mean, what Shoban is all about. Yeah, I'll be honest in my head. This is really when Shoban's career ends. for me. I know that he has like 12 more fights or actually it's probably like 15 or 16 more after

this. But in my head, this is the cutoff of like, all right, that's, that's where Shogh and some of those fights are awesome. The rematch with Nog is great. He rematches Dan Henderson.

Fun as hell fight. Like has some, some key moments, but like the first Hindo fight, that's where, that's where everything was, was crisp as far as I'm concerned. Shaheen,

share. Yeah, I almost did, I almost pulled a jet on this and threw both of them as like a package deal because it was one of those moments where like, you know, you get an all-time fight and then you run it back and it's almost like, should we really be running this back? Like, that's not going to live up. And then it absolutely somehow lives up and it's just like, I don't understand how we just did this again. It feels weird in a way to throw a loss into the Mount Rushmore. But I think you guys have both said it. This shouldn't have been a loss, right? Just like the

First, the Oto fight, it shouldn't have been a loss. Like this absolutely shouldn't have been a loss. If it happens today, I think it probably ends up as a draw because judges are more likely to be scoring 10-8s and things like that. For sure. So just waiting fights like that where, hey, like this kind of just feels like a draw. We're going to figure out a way to make it a draw. That's certainly a thing more nowadays than it was then.

But, I mean, it's just pure, it's until Yuri versus Glover, it was probably the greatest light heavyweight fight ever of all time. title fight you can go john jones alexander gustason but like just in terms of pure fight this was probably the greatest light heavyweight fight in ufc history right until yury versus glover like it's it's it's it's two human beings pushing themselves past like any sort of human limit right like they become superhuman at various points in that fight that the thing when it's definitely in the ufc but if it wasn't probably shogga nog at pride it's like the other like historic like every fight that stacks up here.

Like, this man delivered for us. This is where I'm getting at. He really did. He really did. And this fight, again, it's just a testament to human will, frankly. Like, you were watching two men dig

to the depths of their souls to, like, bear this out in these championship rounds. And it's just unreal. It's unreal. Like, there have been a lot of people that have eaten a lot of age bombs in their life. And how many have recovered, like, he was unconscious.

I'm convinced he was unconscious. for half of that. Is it second or third round, whichever one where he's like just dead and can't, Hendo can't quite put in the nails? Like, just unbelievable consciousness in part. Doesn't make sense.

By the way, the damn you were good of Dan Henderson's going to be really fun. Because there's a lot of, there's a lot of chapters to that man's career. He was not fun for a long time. And then all of a sudden he got very fun. He's ideal for Dan because we can skip over the like 30-some-odd, just bore fest that he delivered and just do here's where he was awesome decision dan he was

decision dan for a while decision dan for so long uh but yeah i mean you cannot say enough plot it's about shogun henderson one show gun henderson one and i i put shogun henderson one in my mount rushmore and there's a reason that fights in the ufc hall of fame it's it's a bangers still even today you're right i did the same thing where i hadn't watched this fight in a good like four or five years watched it tonight today and it was just i was at my seat again even though i already knew what's going on. That's how you know it's a good fight. When you're like, you know it's coming, it doesn't matter.

You're still just glued to it. So, Shaheen, I think that that means if I'm keeping track of this, which I'm not, but off the top, think that means we've done your Mount Rushmore because you had Clinton Jackson, you had Leoto Machita, Dan Henderson, you had Ricardo Arona. So that's yours. But I believe we are still missing one from Yugi because you had Machita, Henderson, Erona. What is your,

what is your fourth? The other big one. It's the little knock. It's the which one? It's the little nog one. Oh, the little nog. Okay. Yeah, yeah.

We already got my four fights as well. Perfect. So I kind of had a feeling that we'd have mostly overlap. I do want to shout out a couple of other ones that like as I was going through. The first one, Mecca Valley, Mecca World Valley 2-08, Angela Di Olivera. You can see every Shogun fight. They're all online, so that's great. He literally kicks a man out of the ring,

and it's just as violent and kind of funny, as you would imagine. Or this man is in the corner, and he just ripped soccer kicks into him, and the dude just flies under the bottom rope and out of the ring. It's the best. The Hiramitsu Kana Harrah Fight Pride 29. This, I really wanted to work this in, not because it's like a signature moment, but it has the signature thing in my head.

Gene, you said earlier, like the signature photo, you know, of that leaping shot from thing. When I think of Shogun, I think of him doing the flying stomp. Like, that is the picture in my head. And he does it in a lot of fights, but he, like, almost exclusively spams them against Kanahara

and just keeps jumping at this man and stomping him over and over until he goes unconscious. And so it's just, if you go rewatch this man's career, you will be so sad that we don't have stomps and soccer kicks. Or at least I was. Maybe you feel bad about the people that he violently hits with him. And I'm like, this is awesome. I missed it.

I don't feel bad. Yeah, I don't know. They sign up for that. I don't know. I go back and I watch that. I go back and I watch that and I'm kind of relieved we don't have it. Can you imagine someone like a Sergei Pavlovich or a Francis Ngano trying to throw moves like that? Like, it's a different breed of fighter these days.

and I'm kind of okay with the fact that this is not allowed anymore because there would be actual problems with it. Imagine Ryan Hall fighting with soccer kicks and stumps. It would be the best. He wouldn't have a career. It'd be done. That's the part. Like, we'll save this because I've got a whole thing later for stomps and soccer kicks.

But the last one I want to throw out is because I just think it's underappreciated. It's the Kevin Randleman fight at Pride 32. That is maybe the nastiest knee. in the history of the sport. Like he's fishing, he lands zero strikes in the bout just immediately in a leg entanglement. And when he gets to the knee bar,

the commentary is incredible because it's, I think it's Quadros. Who's like, he's just trying to flex out of this. And he is because he's Kevin Randleman. And so he can flex out of freaking anything. And then he gets the knee bar. He gets it all the way behind the arm, full extension.

It just, just flamingo legs the man. one of the nastiest knee bars you ever going to see. And, yeah, Shogun was a monster. Do you guys have anything else you want to talk about in the Mal Rushmore before we move on? My main issue with that random win is that it built this narrative that Shogun has an incredible jiu-jitsu and fantastic ground game. Like, we never got, we never saw any of that.

Like, he literally has, like, that win. And that's it. Like, when he was fighting John Jones, like, there was a point that he was just pulling guard, like, but just frustrating to watch. And I think that whole John Jones fight is tough. People like build that narrative because of that winning against random. Yeah, he really doesn't have, you know, I mean, his career, he has the one submission way is the Kevin Randi. He's one of those black bells in jiu-jitsu with quotes. Yeah, he's a black belt in jiu-jitsu, but.

is he though like he was submitted by chill sonn without doing this that can happen anybody he did have a great ground game it's just that wasn't he he went for a lot of leg entanglements that like really weren't a necessary to make any sense yeah he did it against mark coleman and couldn't get what are you doing there yeah it's like i'm not you probably don't need to do this it probably would you not to just attack the legs but uh the one time it worked it's the nastiest knee bar that i can't recall seeing so So I wanted to shout it out. Any other fights that you want to mention the Rushmore before we move on to the rest of the show?

I wouldn't say anything that I want to mention for the Rushmore, but I would say that you don't, like, it's easy to forget that this, Shogun also had just like a lot of sneaky great knockouts sort of late in his career too. Right. Like a lot of these latter wins that you're not thinking of like a James Tehuna or whatever you want to throw out there. Like the James Tihuna knockout is obscene. That was so violent. Yeah. And it's just scary. Scattered amongst his end of career record.

And lucky that he missed that last punch. It didn't land. Yes. It's that land, man. Just. Oh my God. It's just like he didn't land that one. We talk about, you know, all violence teams.

Jordan Brin always used to do the old violence team. Like, Shogun is probably all violence first team are like, for career-wise, if not second team, but like he's definitely in the conversation for first team. And the fact that he still has these little snippets, even late in his career, of just these extraordinary bursts of just hyperviolence is just, again, legend. Absolutely legend. And look, we're, we're going to get one on Saturday, baby. Ihor Potiera, you're going to die. You're going to die, baby. Let's go. In case she has her wondering, if I'm bringing journalistic objectivity to UFC 283, I am not.

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Conditions apply. All right. Next category. We're through the big one. Mount Rushmore is always the biggest one. It takes the longest time. On to our next one. the I'm not impressed by your performance award.

This is, you know, we talk to highs, let's talk to low. I have three notes. I have three mentions here. I'm pretty confident they will be included in all of years. So let's start with you all this time instead. Guy, give me your career low for Shogunhua. Man, that's stuff. Unfortunately, his USC career had a lot of lows.

Sure did. Yeah. I mean, like the one I just mentioned, the Chios Sona lost, it was like, not that losing to Chio Sonny's is that bad, but the way he lost, like, tapping the first round was, I remember, like, watching that live, it was sad to watch. And like the, it was a giant show, too. It was like the debut, the Fox situation. Like, that was a massive temple show. for them and yeah it was well around that's it like the Ovinstan Pro Fight in Nubilandja of all places

like someone throwing the skateboard in the in the cage and like I'm I want to know that I'm I'm so happy that you said that we brought this up earlier because in my notes I have that goddamn skateboard for this fight in this thing

and I was like I didn't know if that was me being too online it was like No. No, no, no. I think that they will know what I'm saying often. I was, I was cage side for that fight. I was key side. And I got to tell you, I had no idea what happened when he went down with the first punch.

Because with the angle of the cage is just shitty to watch sometimes. Yeah, tough to see. And where they were in the cage, like, Shogun let just rush forwards and then, boom, you just collapse. I was saying, what the fuck just happened? And then the fight was over, and I was, what the fuck? We had to wait a long time to get to the replay in the big stream. So then we saw the punch that landed. It was so weird.

Like, well, I mean, like watching real time, maybe someone did throw a skateboarding occasion. We all missed it. I think it happened because you said you couldn't see a cage side. Dude, watching it live, I was like, he just fell over. online. Yeah, if we, we, we have video proof that someone threw a skateboard there. So it happens. We do. It's online. I saw it online, so it's true. Yeah. It's online, so it's true.

So that, that is on my list. It's not what I ultimately went with, but it is on my list. Shaheen, what about you? So I, too, if you look at my notes for this, I just have OSP skateboard. I have that written down to my note. I have to submit this to the panel. Is that the greatest, like, fan edit of anything in MMA history? Because that is so thoroughly convincing that I have met people who are newer fans who think that's actually what happened.

And I've been asked at least twice in my life. It's just, it's perfect. It's perfect. It's everything about it's perfect. And this is not an exaggeration. I've been asked twice in my life. Why did they let that go? Like, why did they let that happen?

Like, why wasn't there? something that was done about that. And it's just like, are you serious? Do you actually believe that that's how this fight went? It's sublime editing. It's, again, I submit that that's the best edit of anything in MMA history. Can you think anything better? What really amazes me is someone watched that fight.

I think, man, what if I just added a skateboard being thrown the cage? Like, who had this idea? The creativity there at play. Because I never would have come up with that. And it fits so perfectly, too. It is, if it wasn't so ridiculous, it would be believable. And apparently it is believable. It is.

It is beautiful for some people, yeah. Yeah. But yeah, I had that written down as one of my low lights. Also, the other two, I think, would be pretty common amongst you guys as well. The John Jones beat down, I mean, we've touched on it a tiny bit. Gee, you said it first five seconds. It was very clear where that was going. I think that's probably one of the, like, most.

what eye-opening, changing of the guards that I can ever remember in combat sports, where, again, the moment you see it, it's like to begin, it's just like, oh, God, like, we're going to have problems on our hands for years to come with this John Jones fella. And then the last one for me is the UFC debut, right, against Forrest Griffin, where I'm sure we're going to go into this more later on, but comes in as just this incredibly high, 25-year-old peak of his powers. and just looks pretty terrible against Forrest. Like it wasn't some spectacular Forrest Griffin performance.

It was just a really, really bad Shogun performance. And if you were like me, one of those people who were hyping Shogun to your friends of like, oh, dude, you're going to see this guy's a murderer. He's coming from Japan. He's going to take this title so fast. And then he puts on that performance. And I'm just sitting in there at the sports bar looking like a dummy. Yeah.

That for me is probably the, probably the, top low light. So the forest one is the other one. I will, you know, freely admit, as Shaheen earlier mentioned, you know, in oversight. I didn't have the John Jones one. I think it was just, I don't like to think about that fight. It just hurts my feelings how not competitive that that fight was. But the forest one, because the other thing that's really important to remember about the

forest one is, you know, maybe for the broader Rumae fan base, they knew who Forrest was, because he was the guy who got it popular or whatever. But the internet, the online fanboys, did not think very highly of Forrest Griffin. Even coming off the Tito Ortiz performance, this was still at the peak of disrespecting the tough guys and tough as in the ultimate fighter guys. And just nobody was, like this was looked very,

I remember very clearly as this is fight promotion. They are feeding Shogun, this marketable, this guy that people know, so it will make the maximum impact when he fights for the belt after he beats this dude. And then for that to unfold, I, that makes sense as being the low light, but frankly, I couldn't pick it because the next fight, his very next fight is the one that sticks out with me more than the Griffin fight. Because you go back and rewatch the Griffin fight. It's not a great performance. That fight is at least fun. Like legitimately, that fight was way more fun than I remember.

I rewatched it. Mark Coleman, UFC 93, Shogun's coming off the double knee, the two surgeries on the same knee, but this was, this was course correction. All right,

he lost the forest, but here's Mark Coleman, his first fighting over two years, almost three years. He was 44 years old and looked old. Like he looked like a really fit 44-year-old, but he looked old and Shogun's 25 and supposed to be the hot shit dude, and he damn near loses to Mark Coleman.

Like, if Mark Coleman was 42 instead of 44, Shogun probably loses that fight. And you go back and rewatch it, and it is, that to me is way more. The same thing she was saying about, you tell your friends, this guy's a murderer, and the forest fight happens, okay, that was bad, but maybe Forrest is better. There's no explaining Mark Coleman. like this guy's supposed to be the hot shit and this 44 year old dude who hasn't been good in forever like not even it's not like mark coman was randy coutore he he had been losing he wasn't the mark coleman that fight even outside of the osp and everything that's to come and cross our fingers

not the iho put the air fight that's about to come up mark coleman will forever be the one it's like i can't believe this fight went down the way it did and that is a tough one. So that's it for this category. Our next one. My favorite. One of my favorites, certainly. The Ivan Minjavar Award for the weirdest, most surprising opponent, famously named after Ivan

Vinjavar, who was the first fight for UFC Hall of Famer, greatest fighter of all time, George St. Pierre. So this is usually a really fun category. Shaheen has excelled in this category in the past. I hope he's done it this time because I have. have almost nothing. I have one answer that I've written down for this one. I'm just going to throw it out because this isn't particularly a weird one, but I wanted to talk about this fight for a minute because it's really fun to go rewatch. And it's Evangelis, uh, Evangelis says Santos, you know, it's Cyborg,

because I have a question for you, Guy, because I don't actually know the answers I was looking into it. This fight's dope. If you know anything about Cyborg, you know that that dude is, uh, will one day have his own damn. We mentioned him previously on the Melvin Manhoof episode. And this fight at the beginning of it is just like that. Two dudes just go and ham, 21 or 22 year old Shogun, and then it goes to the ground and the fight's much less interesting because Shogun's a much superior grappler. But the opening's awesome. And my question for you, Ghee, is, were they both shoot a box fighters at the time? Because it feels like they were, but I'm not 100% that this is true.

That doesn't feel like that's, they would have fought, but isn't, it wasn't Evangelis Santos shoot-to-box, dude? No, I think, I mean, I think he, he became a shootbox fighter after that, but he wasn't a shoot-box fighter at a time. Because he, like, Shogun is from Kutiba. It's from, like, the city of the shoot-box. Yeah. And Cyborg is from, like, the, like, the...

the same area of Brazil, like Matagrosso. So it's really far from Curitiba. I think that was the one that, like, shoot box saw him and decided maybe, like, get him on the board, on, on board. Hey, that makes sense. Because in my head, I think of him as a shootto box guy. And obviously, Shogun is, you know, one of the shootto box guys. I was like, did they just fight each other? Because it wouldn't entirely surprise me, but it felt weird.

but this is the only weird opponent I could come up with. So do either of you have a good one for the Ivan Minjabar award? Man, I wish I did because you're right. I feel like I've excelled at this category in past episodes. I got nothing for this one. I was trying my best. He just fought killers his whole career. Like from almost immediately he was just,

here's the best dudes in the world. You're fighting them. Absolutely. I mean, his opponents have Wikipedia pages for whatever that metric means from fight three onward. Like, that's it. Like, he got two people that guys didn't really know about. And then the rest were just, like, well-known products.

Like, he fought Babelow, like, Babelieu, like, in his, what, fifth fight as a pro? He was already in pride by his six fight. Like, I tried my hardest. I was doing deep dives on all these weirdos on his record. And it was just nothing. I came up with nothing, nothing interesting. He was just murderers row from the outside. set. That's really tough.

Guy, do you have anything that can pull us out of this, or do we just come with air here? Yeah, it's a tough one. I mean, there's a random one because Eric Van der Leigh. It's like he's a big-ish jih jih Tijuana coach. It's just so random to see that like he fought Shogun so whirl in his career. At the time, he was the, the, world champion. He had won the super heavy black belt

world championship. So like doesn't shock me at all that he's a bigish coach but yeah. There's just there's not a lot of not a lot of meat on this bone so we won't spend we won't make you know we won't squeeze blood from the stone here. We'll move on to the next one which is the

Fedor sweater of absolute victory award. So if you could have one piece of memorabilia from the fighter's career, what would it be Ghee? If you could have one thing the last time we were here, you had maybe the best answer this show's ever had to this particular category,

this really heartwarming story. Do you have something like that to offer with Shogun? I don't. It would be tough to follow that one up for being real. Yeah, I mean, I would just ask for the skateboard. Yes, that's the right answer. Yes. That is absolutely the right answer

because that is what I have is my answer. That's the one. That's what I want. That's it. Or maybe find the man that or woman that... Find the man that did it bring their head. Sheen, please tell me you also had the skateboard because it would make you really happy if we go three for three on this particular category.

I didn't. I didn't have the skateboard. I'm upset with myself that I didn't. But I still, I stand by my answer, frankly, though. Because this would be my stock answer for a lot of different guys that we could potentially do on this show. I just want the giant Pride Grand Prix trophy. Like the monstrous six foot tall trophies that they would hand out for these events, I want that. I want to just put that in my office and then people are going to see that and be like, what's that? It's like, oh, you don't need to worry about what that is.

Just so gargantuan and oversized and gaudy. Like, it's ridiculous. I love it. I wish that would the pomp and the circumstance of all those days was so good. And I wish that was still around. Man, you go back and we watch them too. And just like some of it's a little weird and drawn out. But then it's just like, it's all worth it because look at the scene.

Look at what's happening here. Also, special shouts to the checks they gave. Because the like very colorful, how. however many yen checks they were, that Shogun's like Carrie Hover's head after he wins the GP. It's great. I would take any of that, but Ghee's correct. It's the skateboard.

The skateboard is the old one true answer for the fate or sort of absolute victory. Next category, the international player, haters of all the war. This is where we nitpicked the fighters' career. We talk about the bad side, you know, try and go up and down. The goods and the bads. I feel like we've talked some about this here. but for me, I only really have the part that I wouldn't change this at all about him. This man was not a defensive genius.

In fact, he mostly didn't have any of it. He was a great, had great grappling defense, which led to awesome exchanges. But like, that's why he was fun because he didn't, he didn't block shit. They just threw at each other. It was dope. And then oftentimes that led to poor. cardio, but who cares? That's why he was fun. So do you guys have anything to nitpick here? Because that's all I had, really. Everything else about is perfect. I have one. I have one.

It's funny that like Pride is a pretty well-known steroid promotion, right? Like that whole era, yeah, a bunch of incredibly juiced up superhumans looking ridiculous with traps out out of the building. And somebody put it on Twitter yesterday. One of the, who I'm trying to remember what pride, what pride fighter it was showed in like dug up one of their old pride contracts. And like, here's a thing. And there's a clause where it more or less explicitly states, you should take drugs.

Yeah. It was encouraged. It was actively encouraged. Again, like traps and lats just out of the building for most of these guys. And yet Shogun, like, I don't know that he ever really got in good shape. like that's easy for me to say right like I'm some dude on its couch sitting here just talking about this but like for the majority of that man's career he did not feel like he was in very good shape and so if we're going to nitpick anything never had a six pat never in particular once he

moved to the UFC he very much didn't get in shape like whatever he was in pride he lost that little bit of a of toneness once he went to north America so if you're in a nitp pick anything. I think it would probably be that. But also, it's what you said, Jedward. It's kind of why he's so fun too, right? Like, he's just this dude who's looking like a podcaster, getting up off the couch to come to come fight this. And all of a sudden, he's just a demon in there and just throwing bungalows with it with the best of them. Like, you got to love it. You absolutely got to love it. I don't know how he was managed to pull it off, but it's unbelievable. I agree. Gee, do you have anything in this, in this category?

Yeah, it's something along those lines of what Shahin said. My main issue with Shogun is that he could have been way better than he already was if he just trained more. Again, it's hard for me to say, but Shogun is known, especially here in Brazil, for not, I mean, I'm not in his gym. I'm not watching him work out, but I've been around for, I feel a long time and I talked to people and if Shogun had like was someone that worked harder like not just in camps but in between camps as well

would have been like fantastic he wouldn't have this uh as much as a lot of ups and downs in the UFC he wouldn't like be similar to to what he did in in pride he switched teams That makes sense. A lot as a UFC fighter. Like, he was training with his own team in Curitiba, and then he was training in San Paulo with Edad Alonso. And then he was training in California with Havaradero, but not really training in California with Halco Gideore.

I mean, just going there like a month before a fight. And then he was, like, training again in Cuditiba. Now with him the Adjida. He was suiting teams a lot doing his UFC run. And I think that was the biggest issue for him in the UFC. He was training with Halfa Gordero for the horse gripping rematch. He was trained with the Adjida for the Yoramachida fights. And he did great, but then he lost and then he teams, he switched coaches.

So not having that home, that consistency, I think that hurt him a lot in the UFC. I can buy that. I also, while you guys were talking, I looked it up, it's instant anyway, MMA legend. One day he'll get a damn. And the specific quote is performance enhancing stimulants are specifically excluded from the scope of tests in the language of the Pride contract talking about drug testing. It is testing for marijuana, cocaine, heroin, and barbiturates, specifically not testing for performance enhancing drugs. God, I miss pride. What an organization.

What a time. I mean, we have one championship. That's true. We do. I'm going to have to pull that out. We can't leave this in a live pot of the network. Such things. Okay, next category, because it's going to bleed into this exact conversation.

The alternate universe award is the biggest what-if. And my biggest what-if is what-if Pride hadn't died, which is obviously a big what-if for a number of, reasons. But, you know, let's say that Shogun got to spend his career. Existing under the world of Pride's lacks performance-enhancing drug testing, that feels like that would have been good. But more importantly, it's the thing we've talked about a lot today. I've talked around it some. This man taking soccer kicks and stomps away from him. I remember at the time when he was coming over, there was a quote, somebody said this,

and it always stuck with me for one reason or another. It was like a tiger getting declawed coming to the UFC. And I didn't think that that was true until you watched him fight. It's like, oh, this man without stomp's and soccer kicks. What his career. We lost so much of it, so much of the creativity that you were talking about earlier, Shaheen. Like his ability to transit, the Arona knockout is like perfect, right?

Because he's going for a stomp on Arona. He misses it and he ends up with Arona's head. just kind of between his legs, then he just hammers, fists him down. That's a position that never can occur without a stomp or soccer. You're never going to find it. And that sort of creative offense

just got stripped from him. And so if Pride hadn't died, if he could have still had it, I wonder what he would have looked like as a fighter. Like if we still would have had peak peak Shogun for longer, then we end up getting it. He's 25, man. He was 25 years old.

Like he had so much run, way still to just be spectacular over there, right? Because everything about pride really helped him out, right? Like, everything about pride was sort of how he built his fighting style around, how all the shootbox guys built the fighting style around. The ring, the rule set, you know, the lax drug use, like all of it. Like, it's all kind of wrapped in the same package and whatever that- A promoter who may or may not have actively tried to help them win fights all the time. 100%. And so everything about that whole setup really, really. contributed to, you know, what the overall package was for that early run for Shogun. And you're

right. I think if we had had another five years, if he's in Pride until he's 32 or something like that, like we would have had an outrageous amount of moments, I would imagine, because the difference between early Shogun, Pride Shogun, and the Shogun that we have now is like, it's not even the same fighter, right? Like, obviously someone ages, someone ages out, they changes the age, but like, he became such more of a meat and potatoes, boxer, you know, occasional kickboxer in the UFC compared to what he was early on, where, again, we're reiterated, I'm reiterated myself, but just like this hyper creative dude who was just going to throw monster shots at you from anywhere, tornado kicks, spinning kicks, spinning strikes, stonker kicks, stomps,

like, he was just a maniac, and that really got toned down once he was in the UFC, just by purely the rule set and the venue and everything like that. Yeah, just took it out. Guy, do you have anything in this regard? Yeah, I have two big what-ifs when it comes to show. The first one, I think the most important, more than just priding, sticking around, is what if he had good news?

I mean, that's what his biggest issue, his biggest issue during his entire career, is having multiple knee injuries, going surgery, having surgery all the time. Like, that really screwed him. Like, the Forrest Griffin fight, his knee was destroyed. So if he had, like, good knees like a normal human being, maybe he would never lose to Forrest Griffin. Maybe he would have won the UFC title sooner.

But the, and the other what if is what if Rashad Evans. also had good knees and ever pulled out of the fight, and he fought Rashad Evans and not John Jones. Oh, man. That's a big sliding doors moment, because if the John Jones ascension gets delayed because of Rashad Evans, that things get a lot more interesting. Do they?

Do they? Though, well, John was coming. We end in the same place, but that could have absolutely been a situation where Shogun gets like another year and a half instead of like four months. his champion or whatever yeah john was coming like that that beat down was coming sooner or later i mean oh yeah he there was never a world where john wasn't going to kick his ass when they fought it's just you could have really pushed out what at least shogun would we would just win the belt and

defended once before losing to john john yeah exactly instead of being a like three-month champion or whatever very short time frame he ended up being a champ so uh so i know that that's that's a good one i had one more i want to throw in before we move on. Okay. Which is kind of like, it was kind of the hardcore's argument back in the day, right? This is what people would be arguing about on forums, whether it was a UG or Sherdog or whatever back in today, which was that pride.

And this forum arguments. I know, right? Can you imagine, can you imagine there was a time? Forum arguments were. We were doing that. I spent so many years, like, heavily into forums. Like, it was, I spent so many years writing so many dissertations on this thing. felt like in the world, too.

So it was the same like seven dudes that you would be arguing these topics over. It's the best. Oh, man. I'm glad that no one can unearth a lot of those. A lot of those websites have shut down because I'm sure there's some very stupid things that were written on there. But for me, my what if for Shogun always goes back to, aside from everything else we've mentioned, 2005, the tournament.

And what would have happened had Ricardo O'Rona not beaten Van der Le Silva? in that semi-final. Oh, right? Because that was... You're stepping on the next category. We're going to use the transition right into it, which is the compete Tony Award. Yeah. It's a Havit Tony Award for a fight that never happened.

That works for me. That was my number one. That was my number one, too. Because I have a couple, but that's my number one for sure. The dynamic between those guys back then was so fascinating, right? Because it was very much a mentor, protege type of a dynamic. But it was very clear, very early. that like Shogun might be better than Van der Leigh.

Like Van der Leigh is the man. Vandali is the man in pride. But like Shogun might be the better version of him. Like he might be the more vicious, more refined version of Vandale, the 2.0. And we almost got it. Like we went into that of it.

That whole semi-final slash final happened in one night. And we went into that night being like, oh, dude, there's a very, very large chance here that we're about to see Shogun versus Van der Leigh in this final. And it's going to be obscene and stupid. in bananas and I can't wait for it. And then, of course, the MMA gods get involved, and that's not what we get. But it would have just been such a seminal moment for the sport and for shootbox and for

everything. For Brazilian M.MA, I would imagine, too, Guillermo, you could correct me on that if I'm wrong. But just like, that was the moment, the fight, there was no other circumstance. Those dudes were going to fight. There was no other way they were going to fight unless it was that exact setup. And we almost had it. We had it for a split second that night.

It felt like we had it. but they they they they weren't going to fight for real yeah that that was that was my other part I know I've talked to a lot of people and uh they they had a deal like if they both won and went to the to the to the final they would just like quote-unquote fight and vandali would win oh yeah well that's a that has a long history of success in pride as well the maybe the uh I do wonder though if you get in that moment are not I mean not new. I do wonder, though, you get in that moment and you're starting to go and there's a prize fund

there. I mean, I'm not saying that pride would have fixed it. No, but you know. Pride would be in the competitiveness. It's just like fight, you know. Yeah, I, so that, it's on my list. In a, in a vacuum, like, they're not teammates. Their fight would have been crazy. Yeah.

So that's my real point, because that's where I have this. It's my number one because in a vacuum and great. And I have these notes here of like, that could been the finals GP. There were there were talks at the time. I remember of it being like that could be that could be the semifinals because they didn't have like the set brackets. It was here are the four semifinalists. How do they want to just like how are they going to make this up? They could have just made instead of having a potential for a double shoot the box final. We can just have those two guys

fight it out in the semis which probably would have been worse because like he said, I don't think, certainly in the semis, I don't think there was any chance you get a. fight they would have pulled the old one of these guys gets to go through on harm so they have a better chance of winning the whole thing but yeah in a vacuum that's that's my number one fight without question i have i also threw down the rachadven one just because that fight was twice booked once for the title once a little bit later fell through didn't happen out of their time and then never happened um and but i'll be honest is that a fight that you guys care about because as I was doing this like I don't that didn't that doesn't mean anything no I don't feel sad

in to have lost that matchup I feel nothing about that matchup frankly other than the fact that like you said the the John Jones beat down like yeah that's about if you said that we didn't get like a shogun against prime chuck and it's prime like the the vandalay fight was epic the vandalay and and chuck yes I was epic. Like that fight with sugar instead of silver. Yeah, I'm with, I can see you on that one. To me, I frankly didn't even, didn't even cross my mind just because Chuck Vandrelet was the whole, it was everything at the time.

So that's it. Yeah. Here's my other one. I have two more. One is the Quinn Jackson rematch. So if he, if he beats Forrest Griffin, he's just fighting Quinn Jackson, who's the head, the UFC light heavyweight champion at the time. I want to say that the fight goes the same because it was such a comprehensive beat down the first time.

But given how bad he looked against Forrest, if he had managed to win that fight, it's just a fascinating one to think how that fight would have gone in a rematch, because he rematch like everybody else seemingly, just never ended up doing it with Clinton. But here's the one I'm the most excited to tell you guys about, because this could have never happened.

I'm not talking about in a real world. Talking fantasy matchmaking, you give me a genie in three wishes, I can make a fight. Give me 2005 Shogun Hua versus 2020 Yiri Prahashka, and I will give you $1,000 to watch that fist fight. I cannot imagine something I would be more interested in.

Because Yiri in a lot of ways feels just like Shogun. That was what struck me a lot. Watch this. Like, dude, this dude fights like Yiri does. This is, Yere's the man. I wish we could watch them fight. So, Jehine, I feel like that should have tickled some particular spot in your soul to think about that fight.

I'm so in. I'm so in. My mic was muted because his baby is making lots of noises, but I made like a guttural. Oh. You said that out loud. Like, yes, you sold me. I'm in. I'm way in.

Yeri is like much, much, much, much bigger than a Shogun. So, like, maybe that would be like a little. Oh, yeah. Now that's just how things work. but yeah oh god i'm in which by the way maybe maybe this re i'm almost back trading a little bit but like also a what if that i think deserves to just even be brought up what if that dude had just gotten in a tiny bit of good shape and moved to middle weight like at any reasonably early part of his career like he could have probably done really well there but again or why in good

shape and hit the gym maybe add into a little bit of masks and some abs you know anything could happen and fought fat or a have weight uh uh I didn't put Fador as a fight here because Vandale Silva Fador is the one that got away for me, and I don't want to just, like, put Shogun in all of my Vandale fights, but for sure, I would watch the hell out of him fight. You can't do that. Would have been awesome. Yeah, France. They don't understand.

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forma standard and mini, regrouped for a Meyer Quality Price. In line on C for a Ponce or in magazine. Next category, we're winding down. Not many left, and we're going to rip through these last ones, as we've already been here for quite some time. The Brad Ibs. Whoa, you serious award? This is for named after Brad Ims, the Hillbilly Hartthob, former UFC heavyweight who once won back-to-back fights by Gogu Potto, which is incredibly funny when you think that he is a six-foot-seven

enormous heavyweight. And so this is for most impressive or unbelievable career statistics. I didn't have a ton here We've already mentioned kind of the one that I That jumps out to me the most and I don't want to step on you sheen Because you you brought it to the table Why don't you take the lead here sheen Yeah it's honestly it's for me it's just the different age markers That he accomplished all this right because there's three different ones for me

One winning the GP that we've talked about in 2005 at age 23 Is aside from john jones becoming ufc champion so young probably the most impressed single most impressive thing that a young fighter has ever done in the history of this sport frankly i i we should talk about this right now because i actually believe that it is more impressive than john jones becoming champion it's a one a one b for me but yeah i mean it's it's a it's a crazy crazy feat for the for anybody who doesn't know because we haven't actually specifically laid it out i want to his 2005 the legendary o five he beat uh here mitt's you kind of horror in just a pride fight like that February.

Ficious Stump. Yeah. Unbelievable stomp. I mentioned, I talked about the stumps earlier, but there's Quinn Jackson, the opening round of the GP, Little Nog, Fight of the Year, Alistair Overeem, the semifinals, and then Ricardo O'Rona later that night, a consummate performance. Those were four of the 20 best fighters in the world at that time. And this is a dude coming not entirely out of nowhere. but he's the second dude at his gym.

Vandale is the first guy. He's, to some extent, still the little brother of Ninja, and just barnstorms the world. Like, and that run, I really don't think we've seen it's like, like, ever in this sport. Yeah, like, with John Jones, we knew that John Jones was coming, right? There was, it was very obvious very early, like, oh, this is happening. So when he did go on that crazy year that he went on, I don't know that people were surprised particularly.

People were impressed, but they weren't surprised. Shogun's year was surprising because he, like, you could tell like, hey, this is a guy who got some talent, but like you said, he was, I would almost say number three at that gym behind Ninja too, because it was Van der Leyen, it was ninja, and then it was Shogun, and then all of a sudden Shogun just comes out of nowhere and beats so many high-level talented guys in such outrageously violent fashion. And to do that at age 23, like, you look at a prospect now,

like who's 23 in the UFC doing anything remotely close to that like it's just and you talk about like his year it's not even a year it's a six month period say yeah it's not even a year fan really crazy it's so crazy yeah the tournament a stat on this tied to this which is uh he won the grand prix 1,024 days after his pro debut like that's think about that that's stupid substantially less than three years after he made his fighting debut, he won the most prestigious tournament up to that point in the history of the sport. The GP started in April of 2005 and ended it in August. That's like five months.

Like, what are we talking about? That's unbelievable. Five months. So you said you had multiple points here. So in terms of age markers, him doing that at 23 is probably the most impressive. But then him going to the UFC at age 25. Again, I think if you asked me, if you asked, probably you, Jed, you, Gearman, like, I don't know, like, if you would just ask me this morning before I looked at this up, like, hey, how old was Shogun when he went to the UFC? I would have guessed, like, late 20s, maybe, like, maybe 30.

Like, to me, it does not make sense to me that he came to the UFC at 25 and was already, like, kind of past his prime at that point. But, like, just the timeline of all of this doesn't make sense. And then to even just jump off that, the last thing would be the fact that he was 28 years old when he won the UFC title. Because he felt so much older. Like he felt 35 when that happened. And it's just, again, he's one of these guys like a Josealdo where Jose Aldo was much younger than you always thought he was. Shogun right there with him. And it's just, again, it's unbelievable.

Him winning the title felt like a feel good thing. Like Glover Tashire gets the title after all these years. and it's actually, well, he's 28 years old. So it's a very, very strange, strange spot, man. Guy, do you have anything for this category? No, I'm just surprised. Like Shaheen said, when he was talking about this age and all that, and he was saying, oh, you know how old he was when he made his UFC debut?

And I thought myself, 31. See? Yeah, man. A thousand percent. If you'd ask me... For the last 10 years, every time Shogun is fighting, he has to answer questions about retirement.

For 10 years. Every time he's fighting. Since he's been in his 30s. Every time he's fighting, we always ask him. And you think what? You think like you have two left? You think about which retirement, like winning and walking away,

like for every single fight for the last 10 years. and he was still fighting. I legitimately thought it was a mistake when I looked it up, because I was looking up just various things on tabology, and you know you can go to the individual fights, and it'll tell you the odds and the age of everybody and stuff. I went to the forest fight because I was just curious, and it said 25,

and I actually had to, like, double check and triple check, because I just didn't believe it. It didn't make sense to me. Dude, I'm with you. If you would ask me, I'd have been, like, I had 29, maybe 30, but, like, dude, he was, I was dead convinced that his career was over after the Chale Sun and submission we talked about. That was a decade ago.

It was a decade ago. Just, uh, the time really, it really plays with you with him. Uh, all right, let's wrap this up.

Sean Ferris Award for actors who should play them in a movie. This is named after Sean Ferris, the actor who played Jake Tyler in the cinematic masterpiece, probably the greatest movie movie of all time, never back down. Uh, and it's what fighters should play him in a movie. I have one.

Does anybody have one or more that they feel good about? Because I could only come up with one and then I quit here. I have one that I didn't feel good about. Okay. It felt like it felt like the easy one. He does not feel confident in this one. No. Who do you feel is the easy one than Shaheen?

Jason's Day them. Okay. I'm not going to go with that. He's got the similar head shape, similar sort of look. I see you were doing there. I went very similar in that. I went Wentworth Miller, who, if you don't know by name, he's the main guy on prison break. If you ever saw that show, you will look this dude and you'll know him.

You'll at least know who he is. So feel free to Google Wentworth Miller. Okay. But yeah, I could see this. He was the only guy who jumped in my head. And I don't know if it's just that like when he has his head shaved, it kind of just gave me the Shogun vibe. But that was what I was like, I'm not going to do that. Yeah, the hairline is like, I'm not going to.

do better than this dude so i'm just going to lock it down here this is a category where a k usually really excels so yeah uh i should have asked i think shahin's answer jesus tetan is a it's a it's a good one i mean the point is that i i would probably say shogam himself if you look like his old pictures he used to be a model he was a good-looking guy but the thing is he can't like you can't understand shit he's saying you you guys don't don't don't You guys don't know because you don't speak Portuguese. You guys don't don't speak Portuguese. So you don't know how hard it is to interview Shogan.

Because him and his brother, like, they talk so fast. And like, it's so confusing. Like, they just stumbling words. It's. And they were always like that. I've never heard anybody tell me this. So, like, what about it? what about the way they speak

their dialect of Portuguese is so hard to understand. Just tell me a line and I'm going to say exactly how Shogun would say in Portuguese. Whatever line. Hi, my name is Shogun, who I'm a former UFC champion. Well, so my name is Shogun Huah, I'm going to be like that.

With that voice. That's his voice and that's how fast he speaks. I mean, Shokok has an idea. He was an ultimate fighter coach in Brazil and the season that I think he was replaced or

or he plays Anderson Silva yeah yeah it was him and Erson Silver and Edison was replaced by the Noggeras after the adopting stuff they had to to put

subtitles when Shogun was stock he was speaking Portuguese and he needed subtitles in Brazil This brings up an interesting point because you said something about this earlier and I never once thought about it about like when I was asking you about kind of where he is and sort of his place and Guy were like oh you know he's he just didn't ever have that same connection and it's like as you say it I am not confident I could pick Shogun's voice out of a crowd like if if you just played audio of people speaking I'm not sure I could be like and I know I absolutely know what Anderson Silva sounds like. I know, but that's, I know what their personalities are. Like, I know what Vanderlai Silva's personality is like,

I don't really have any concept of this about Shogun. It's just how the dude fights and presents himself in the cage. And outside of the cage, there's nothing. Go on YouTube and find an interview in Portuguese. I'm a thousand percent going to do this now. Yes, it's his voice. And, but I mean, you don't speak Portuguese, but it's, so crazy because it's so hard to understand.

Now this opens up like a whole. That's a classic video online when he lost John Jones. And I went to his room after the fight and then the next morning trying to interview him. He was just a mess. So when I interviewed Ninja, it's much worse. It's incredible. It's so hard to understand what he's saying. And I was too dumb that I did a video interview, which we should.

with ninja. And that's, it goes viral often in Brazil. It's usually, not, not anymore. It's so funny because you can understand that word he's saying, like, his brother just got beat up the night before by John Johnson,

no longer UFC champion, and he's just sitting there, sad, having to talk about it, and you don't understand that what he's saying. It's so funny. That's what matters. He learned no idea. Every day. Yeah.

Real quick. This opens up a whole new world of questioning for me. Yerme, we're like, who else do we not know is just incredibly difficult to like understand it in Portuguese? Like who are just a few other guys that like or women that just you interview them? You have no concept. That's it. That's it? Just Shogun and Asia.

Yeah. I don't know what what is, but it's so hard to understand them. And they know that. It's funny because I remember doing it and interview once with Shoggan. And after we ended, he asked, was it easy to understand what I would say? Wow. Dude, if you're asking that question, that means you know. You are aware if you're having to ask that question.

He worked on it eventually, but it's not great. I mean, it's better than he used to. But like phoenicia is is still impossible to understand it's impossible Fantastic who knew you touched on or you overlapped here for the next category of the Cole Conrad career change award What would fighter do if they weren't fighter and you mentioned my only answer? You mentioned that you know Shogun used to be a model I don't think he gets enough credit especially because Let's be real the man hasn't he hasn't aged poorly but he has not gotten more attractive as he's gotten older, certainly.

And some of that might be to Shaheen's point of how he's just seemingly never been in shape, and that is hurting him. But young Shogun was a deceptively handsome man. I get why he was a model. Like that totally tracks to me. Facts. Yes. Yes.

Absolutely. That was my answer. I didn't have another answer other than just the man would be out there doing advertisements. And he doesn't have to talk if he's doing advertisement. So that really works well for you. Just blows and take pictures. Just a pretty face who doesn't speak at all. So everything works out.

Though maybe he might have had to get in shape if he was doing that. I'm not sure. Yeah. Yeah. Or maybe not. You know, there are all types of models. Maybe he's a cheppy model.

He just does suits, you know. He's in good enough shape to rock a suit just like when he's wearing the tight shorts, you could see a little bit of foldover, you know? It's okay. I'm actually stunned that this is the first tight shorts mention that we've had on this entire podcast because that man is legendary for wearing the least amount of clothes

that you are like actually allowed to wear as a man in this sport. It is pretty ridiculous that this dude has done this for like 20 years. I can't think of anybody else who's worn less than him. And it felt like when he was younger, it was fine as his UFC career when I was just like, I feel like you might want to go up as short size. This feels like you're constricted in some of these spots, my man.

I feel like you are still hanging on to thinking you're alarge when maybe you're an Excel now and you're just not coming to terms of it. In Brazil, he's a mythical fighter, shogun with white Spitos. There's a mythical fighter. Shogun with white Spitos never loses. If there wasn't the skateboard, white speedos would have been a great, you know, Fador sweater memorabilia pick because the white speedos is iconic, absolutely iconic with the man. All right, we've got two categories left.

We're winding it down, been a long app. And this one is a bit of a problem because our penultimate category, I think we're going to have a lot of uniformity here. It seems like a pretty obvious one, but this was formerly known as the Phil Barone. I'm the best ever award for the fighter's career peak. Still want to celebrate that, but obviously do not want to celebrate Phil Barone, given things that have happened this year.

So we are changing this category's name, this category now, instead of referencing what is turning out to be a terrible, terrible situation, we're going to use this to elevate one of the best situations in recent memory. That was Leon Edwards, incredible comeback win, and his frankly an emotional post-fight speech and the quote that sticks with me and will now be immortalized on damn they were good. Look at me now!

So this is the look at me now award for the fighter's career peak, the apex when they were at the tippy top of their powers. And for this one, like I said, I think it's going to be pretty easy. I think it's a pretty straightforward answer for us here. I mentioned at the top I left this fight off my Mount Rushmore because I put it here. And it's the 05 Grand Prix win, Ricardo Arona, that performance, we talked about, we don't have to go into it, but if there's,

you know, in the scheme of MMA fights that have been mortal combat style, flawless victories, that one is right up there. Orona had absolutely nothing. And the fact that it came, as mentioned before, over, you know, his teammates' greatest rival in the finals, his career never got better as far as I'm concerned. and I don't even care that he won the UFC belt later. That is the peak of his career.

And so that's why I'm here with this. Also, didn't get mentioned, I just want to throw it out. He starts to fight with a fucking tornado kick. That's what I'm saying. No reason. He just comes out and spins. He's awesome. The biggest moment of his life.

The biggest moment of his life against a guy who just beat his teammate. And he's like, spinning tornado kick, baby. Let's go. utter maniac. That's what I'm saying. Like, young show, a legend was such a different demon. I was actually kind of scared, and maybe Guillermo still might,

that somebody was going to pick the 2011 UFC title for this, that's just incorrect. Like, that's just someone acting like the UFC was the, is the end-all-b-all when it comes to this stuff, and it's not. It was absolutely 2005. It was, we've said it in depth, so I'm not going to go too deep onto it. But, again, this person coming from,

kind of out of nowhere to all of a sudden king of the world. Like after that tournament, he was the absolute best. Like he was the king of the world, he could do no wrong, he was that guy. And it was, it's absolutely the peak. I would love to hear another argument, but to me it's 2005. It has to be. The right pick is Saturday nights, I guess. Oh, yeah.

I like that. I like that. Yeah. I mean, it has to be. It has to be, man. I love that. A good win to walk off to the sunset, like the way he deserves. I mean, he's fighting, Pocheria and his final fight.

That's depressing. That's so sad. So just destroy the man and walk off to the sunset and live up a great life. He deserves that. But he got a big win, man. I love that so much because that's, I'm going to give that the award. That is, that's going to be the defining Shogun moment going out in Rio de Janeiro, just, just doing the damn thing.

Which brings us to the end. Last thing, the Hoyst Gracie Legacy Awards, it is not really an award so much as it, it wraps up our feelings about what Shogun meant to us in the sport and the pantheon of MMA. So, uh, I want to end with Ghee since, you know, Brazilian Beast, the homecoming. He also just closed it out brilliantly the last one. So I'll lead us off because we've covered a lot of what I wanted to talk about. This is usually where any of the stuff that I had left that I wanted to speak about

that I didn't get to for one reason or another. But we've done it because he, he's just one of the more fascinating characters in this sports rich tapestry that I can remember covering or dealing with. And because of all the stuff we said, because of the fact that for 10 years now, He has been on the decline. Like, we thought he was going to retire 10 years ago, and here he is, about to knock out Ihor Putierra and ride off into the sunset. And it's the fact that he, the old, the more we've done this, the older I've gotten,

it's weird to think, like, this guy who was a pride fighter fought way more in the U.S. season in pride. It was Shogun, it didn't feel that way, but in the same way it did. because just like all of the moments that I remember of his career, most of them, most of them came in a ring, not a cage. And so he, I feel like he's been underrated and is kind of doomed to be underrated forever because the fact that he, he ascended so quickly so young, but then the bulk of his career was spent in this place where it, it wasn't the highs that the people who were there early

knew. So for me, he's, when I think of him, I just. think of him as one of the greatest all-violence fighters that I've ever seen. And an underrated one where it's very sneaky just how fun and violent this dude was because so much of his career was also like filled with trepidation to watch him fight. Like this weekend, I am filled with trepidation. Like, I hope this ends well. And I feel like I've been feeling that for a decade.

And yet, at the end of the day, he's delivered. And it's been awesome. I have nothing really more. I've said everything I need to say about this man. So Shaheen, what do you have to say about Shogun Huah before we round this out? Yeah, I don't want to reiterate myself too much. But I mean, to me, again, it was just he was one of those guys. There's only a few of them who was kind of the reason I'm doing this, right?

Like, this is kind of the reason that my life took this path that it took. It was because of guys like Shogun. And it was because of guys like Anderson Silva back in those days. And again, if you go back and you look at whatever video games I was playing back then or whatever media I was consuming, like, I'm sure there's a lot of characters that I named Shogun or things like that. He was just a legend before he was even like a grown adult. Like before he was a grown man. He was already kind of an MMA legend.

And it's just an incredible career. It's a very singular and unique career because I think you summed it up well there, Jed, where he was almost like so unreliable that he would stress you out in a way that few fighters would, right? Like a lot of the greats are very consistent with their greatness, where you can pretty much rely, or at least for whatever stretch of time, you know, throughout their 20s or whatever. You could rely on really great performances from them. Sheldon was very much not like that after that, our initial 2005 run.

Like he even lost, you know, he has a couple losses in pride and things like that. Like, he was, his greatness would come and go. But when it was there, when he was motivated, when he'd showed up on that particular night, there are a few fighters in the history of this sport who were just so utterly spectacular with the way that they presented themselves and the violence that they brought forth in that cage. And that's what it comes down to, right? It's like, that's what this show is about is celebrating these all-violence type of guys,

these type of guys who maybe are not going to make any goat lists because I don't think anybody's throwing Shogun-Hua on their goat list, right? He's not, you know, one of the five greatest fighters of all time. But he is an absolute MMA legend, and he left a mark and accomplished things that few others really could. And to me, that says it all. Like, Shogun freaking Hua, man. That's it. Like, he is Shogun.

He is a monster. He is someone who has been doing this for way too long, yet seemingly just long enough. And I really hope this last one does not end in the way that a lot of our legends have. have ended their stories. We're willing it into existence, baby. Willing it into existence. Yeah. Guy, bring us home on Mauricio Shogunhuah.

Man, I mean, what, everything we've always said, man. He's a legend. And he said that he doesn't get the respect he deserves from fans these days. because most of them got into the sport after Shuggled's prime so they just think about this old dude that was a champion in the past and now

he's just winning and losing all the time with the UFC so I mean I just hope that he gets the respect and recognition that as a legend that he deserves and I And I mean, I don't have to root for Fridays, but I hope he gets a big win Saturday to put a good end on his enemy career. And I hope.

And he said he won't do that. And I really hope he doesn't come back for, like, boxing enemy somewhere. Like, just go home, man. Just relax, enjoy your family. And be happy, man. You don't have to go back to, like, fighting in Russia, fighting for PFL, fighting for Bellator, fighting, like, YouTubers in boxing.

Just don't do that, man. I mean, let's not write off going to Belator. We could maybe find some, look, give me Melvin Manhoff versus Shogun, who a 40-year-old man just chucking him. Stop. Don't give them my ideas. Ever damn fight.

That's the best. If he comes back, just give him a winable fight. That's it. I firmly agree. And that's going to be it for us, folks. We've sung all the songs to sing about Shogunhu. Again, he's fighting one last time this Saturday at UFC 283. But before then and even after then, it's just important to remember that damn he was good.

Programming, no. we are back, we are back and running for the rest of the year. This is going to become a monthly podcast except for maybe have something in store for you in a couple of weeks, another special episode. Other than that, you can look for once a month where we're going to talk about some of the biggest legends in the history of the sport and just some of our favorite all-time fighters,

even if maybe they aren't the traditional definition of legend. Until then, keep it locked to the NBA Fighting Podcast Network, listen to, Guy, I can't pronounce your podcast. podcast name because I'm not Portuguese or Brazilian, please say what podcast people should listen to? Troca san Franca. See, you can give me a thousand times, guys. And I'll never, I will butcher it in the worst ways.

Just try. Troca san franca. Trocaza Franca. Yeah. Yeah. Look, I'm not here, man. That's not, this is not what I do. That's why I had you do it because I knew it would be bad.

I don't speak Portuguese, so that's where we're going to end it. Thank you guys for tuning in. Special thanks to Shaheen Al-Shadi and Guillermo Cruz for joining me on this one. I love you guys. Until next time. Love you guys. To the Vox Media Podcast Network.