Stamina was the deciding factor that finally sealed the fate of the fighters in the Coleman-Shogun revenge fight yesterday. When the fighters were introduced, Coleman did not look like the fighter that he was when he fought Don Frye or when he became the first heavyweight champion of the UFC. The well defined abs and chest muscles were gone. But I thought maybe Coleman focused more on cardio exercise as part of his training. Maybe it was a game plan to outlast Shogun in the supposedly fifteen minute fight.
Shogun, on the other hand, looked fresh and back in shape after all the operations he underwent.
Coleman came in the first quarter pumped up, taking down Shogun at will and pummeling him with his signature ground and pound. Shogun even managed to put in good kicks to the left knee of Coleman and I thought that Coleman was going down, like in the Pedro Rizzo- Dan Severn fight.
On the second quarter, things looked very familiar. Coleman again took down Shogun, but after Shogun was able to stand up, Coleman looked very, very tired he could not even put his hands up to defend himself.
What was surprising was Shogun looked even more tired. I did not expect Shogun to lose steam like Coleman. Both looked very tired, old fighters wanting just to finish the round and get it over with.
On the third round, I had the idea that if Coleman keeps it up, he might just pull a winner here. He was taking down Shogun at will even though he was getting hit bad. But before the third round ended, Coleman was hit with a combination ending with a devastating upper cut which brought him down. The referee stopped the fight with Mark Coleman vehemently protesting why the fight was stopped.
I agree with Joe Rogan that even though Shogun won, his victory did not look good in terms of getting him future fights. His win was far from impressive and he did not show the talents of the Shogun Rua of old. Looking at his past fights would show how much he has lost in terms of speed and hunger to win.
Coleman and Shogun need to increase their speed and lenghten their fighting stamina. There are younger, faster and more exciting fighter out there and their performance yesterday might just as well put them in a very long waiting list for a next fight.
Thanks for all your emails. Let's keep this thing up.
Posts
