Mauricio Shogun Rua Expects A Cool Scrap Against James Te Huna

Mauricio ‘Shogun’ Rua stands on the precipice of yet another big battle, this time the event is UFC Fight Night 33 and the opponent is James Te Huna. Although this bout may not have huge implications on the rankings at present, it will be massively influential on the careers of both 32 years olds.

Although Te Huna has only lost one in his last five, two on the bounce could spell the end of the Australian slugger’s tenure with the promotion. Rua would likely consider retirement with a defeat to Te Huna, although according to this interview with MMAFighting.com Rua is more interested in putting on a great fight:

“I expect a tough fight,” he said. “He’s a good fighter that likes to stand and bang. It will be a great fight, for sure. He like to use his hands and I like to use my muay thai, so it will be cool. I don’t know if his style benefits me, but that’s a match-up that I like more (than wrestlers) because he goes there to fight.”

Rua certainly felt Chael Sonnen’s wrestling in their recent bout; the former Middleweight title challenger nullified Rua’s striking attack with his relentless ground game. That is something that I think Te Huna will not be looking to use.

“I’ve been training in Sao Paulo for over a month, and I’ll be training here for the rest of my camp,” he said. “My camp has been great at Demian Maia’s team.” Regarding a cut to 185lbs.: “I haven’t spoken with my team yet,” he said. “If they believe it’s a good move, I’ll do it. It may be a tough decision and I need to think about this, but it’s a possibility that I won’t rule out. But it would be tough to cut to 185.”

I think that Shogun should have been competing at Middleweight for all of his UFC career, mainly because he is just too damn small for 205lbs. I also think that 185lbs. has a fresher talent pool that Rua can implement his striking game on. Who knows, perhaps if Rua loses to Te Huna he will drop a weight class before retiring.

It’s also good to hear that Rua has been trainig with Demian Maia, maybe we will see an improved grappling game? We also know that Freddie Roach has helped Rua with his boxing recently, so expect that to be pretty sharp come fight night too.