Sherdog’s Top 10: Greatest Brazilian Fighters

6. Mauricio Rua

The recently retired “Shogun” is sixth on this list, after coming in fifth place on Sherdog's list of the greatest light heavyweights and third on the list of greatest Pride FC fighters. Rua, like the other top Chute Boxe representatives, aged poorly, being notably past his best by his early 30s, and even before then he was prone to the occasional lapse. However, let us consider Rua at his best. He achieved his absolute peak in Pride and was nearly perfect at 12-1. He had outstanding, underrated grappling, being exceptionally difficult to take down and fantastic at getting back to his feet, with excellent BJJ. However, it was on the feet where he was the best, perfecting the Chute Boxe style that Wanderlei Silva made iconic, with blinding speed and athleticism in his prime. Shogun was also harder to hit than Silva, and nothing was quite as terrifying as him jumping with both feet to head-stomp a downed opponent. His performance in the 2005 Pride Grand Prix was one of the most spectacular I've ever seen in the sport. Rua demolished Quinton Jackson in the opening round, won a clear decision over Antonio Rogerio Nogueira in the quarterfinal, flattened Alistair Overeem with punches in the semifinals and then overwhelmed perhaps the best grappler in the sport at the time, Ricardo Arona, in under three minutes in the final. I can't think of a harder road to a tournament win, or a more amazing series of victories. Aside from a setback in his first fight against Mark Coleman, Rua would continue dominating in Pride, scoring a nice kneebar victory over Kevin Randleman and knocking out Alistair Overeem a second time.

However, he came in flat and overconfident against Forrest Griffin for his UFC debut and was submitted in the third round. That loss has aged fairly well, as Griffin would go on to become UFC light heavyweight champion, but those dismissing Shogun were in for a shock. After getting his revenge against Coleman and knocking out Chuck Liddell, he challenged for the UFC title against then-undefeated Lyoto Machida. Most observers scored it for Rua, myself included, but the decision went to Machida. Rua left no doubts in the rematch, knocking out Machida in the very first round, a shocking, amazing win. After that, “Shogun” had a good but checkered career, getting revenge against Griffin with a first-round knockout, but being stopped by Jon Jones and losing one of the greatest fights ever against Dan Henderson. As noted, he was well past his best by his early 30s, but that doesn't change how amazing he was in his prime.

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