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Lyoto Machida’s victory over Mauricio “Shogun” Rua was easily one of the most, if not the most, controversial decision of the year. Seemingly everyone who watched it live thought Shogun slayed the Dragon at UFC 104 except for the three people whose opinions actually counted for the official record. Well, make that two people because Nelson “Doc” Hamilton now realizes he made a mistake giving Machida round four.

The good news is UFC 104 which was headlined by two barely English speaking fighters — Lyoto Machida and Shogun Rua — pulled in 450-500k pay-per-view buys according to The Wrestling Observer. The bad news is UFC 106 headlined by two proven draws — Tito Ortiz and Forrest Griffin — tanked, only selling an estimated 330-370k pay-per-view buys.Via MMA Payout:

Shogun is speaking pretty good English all of a sudden.

“I believe Shogun would rather to wait for the rematch rather than fight another adversary. He will fight for the belt. I think he is going to wait for Lyoto’s recovery to square off  him…Even those who doen’t understand fighting would give Shogun the win, and those with specialist knowledge even more so. We knew his game, we knew he would work like that and the fight wouldn’t match well for him. They can fight five times and Mauricio will win all of them. It’s a bad fight for Lyoto. The antidote for Machida is to attack the legs and Rua knows how to make the move…I think the revenge will take place in four months at the most. Dana went to the restroom after the fight and said he liked Shogun presentation so much and that Mauricio was victorious in his opinion, he said he would make efforts to make the rematch happen. Shogun was very happy because the outcome was unfair. We had a feeling of injustice. For real, the controversial result only delayed what belongs to him.”

—Maurico Rua’s trainer, Andre Dida, telling Fighters Only Shogun is waiting for the rematch with Machida to take the belt they feel belongs to him

Seriously, this rematch can’t come soon enough.

Image via Sherdog

The only story better than a broke Pat Barry winning $120,000 in bonus money is a broke Pat Barry trying to deposit $120,000 in bonus money. From MMAScrapsRadio (transcript via MiddleEasy):

It wasn’t until Tuesday when I got back home that I got a knock on the door, a special delivery for me. I opened it up and when I saw it, I was like, ‘What the…’ They weren’t joking man they seriously sent me a check for $120,000. I wrote to Joe Silva and said if this was an April Fool’s joke, let me know because I’m about to jump up and down and take off my clothes and run around the street naked. They said it was real man, it was real.

I walk outside to get my car and my car doesn’t start so I’ve got on a t-shirt and I’ve got some pink stripy shorts on, some flip-flops and a black eye. So I’ve got to stand in the street and flag people down, and I’m sweating…I’ve got to flag people down with a black eye and sweat marks to try to get me a jump.

I finally get this guy and I say ‘Yo man, I have a $120,000 in my pocket…can you give me a jump?’. Hey was like ‘Yeah man I’ll give you a jump’. It looked like ‘Hey man can you help me jump start this car I’m trying to steal right now’. I go to the bank, I’m sweaty, I’ve got the black eye, I haven’t shaven in two days, I’m strung out because I haven’t slept, I have green circles under my eyes so I’m like ‘Can I have a deposit slip mam?’. She gives it to me, I fill it out hand it to her. She looks at the deposit slip, then the check, then looks at me and says ‘Excuse me I’ll be right back’. Then a manager comes out, a guy in a suit and says ‘What seems to be the problem?’. I was like ‘Well I have a black eye, that’s the only problem I know this looks really ridiculous’. So he asks me for my ID, I hand him my license an he’s like ‘Your license says Pat Barry, but this check was written to Patrick Barry’. So I decided to be funny and tell him Pat Barry is in my trunk right now. He didn’t laugh. [Ed note: I did] So I told him take your time man do whatever you need to do because I have no where to go and my truck probably wont start when I go outside so you can just do whatever you need to do. An hour later he came back and everything was fine, the check was in my bank account.

How do you not love this guy?

HT: Yahoo via Bloody Elbow

Lyoto Machida mentioned earlier this week that he had injured his hand during the Shogun fight, but he wasn’t sure if it needed surgery. Well, according to Dave Meltzer, the verdict is in, and unfortunately it looks like it does.

UFC officials have confirmed that Lyoto Machida will need surgery on one of his hands, thus delaying the planned middleweight championship rematch with Mauricio “Shogun” Rua (18-4). Machida injured his hand during his controversial win over Rua during UFC 104 Saturday in Los Angeles.

White was hopeful to get the rematch in as soon as Jan. 2, when the company has one of its traditional major events of the year at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. Rua had agreed to the date, but Machida’s surgery eliminates whatever slim possibility there was that he would be fully recovered and ready in time for that date. Right now, it is not known when the fight would be able to take place.

Meltzer also mentioned that Anderson Silva is still recovering from his elbow surgery and the date of his middleweight title defense against Vitor Belfort is still up in the air.

Here’s to hoping for speedy recoveries and no further injuries during training.

Image via Sherdog

Ariel Helwani joins Mike Straka and crew on Fox Fight Game to break down the UFC 104 main event and talk about Cain Velasquez’s big win over Ben Rothwell.

Interesting Machida-Shogun analysis and rematch predictions from Kenny Florian and Rashad Evans at the 9:50 mark.