Around MMA: Rua Back With Cordeiro, Rebney Makes Up For Bad Judging, Couture To Retire Again

Added on Apr 19, 2011 by John Petit in

UFC & MMA

Shogun Back With Cordeiro

Mauricio Shogun Rua has told Sherdog that he will be rejoining former coach Rafael Cordeiro at Kings MMA in California. Rua said Cordeiro let him know that he had an open invitation to return, and he agreed. Rua said “I will make my training camp at Kings MMA because I have so much respect for Rafael Cordeiro. He invited me, and I agreed with him that it would be a good way to develop my game.” He continued to praise his former coach, Rua said “He’s one of the best coaches ever in the history of MMA. I’m going for him and for the other athletes there who are all great fighters, like Wanderlei Silva and Fabricio Werdum. I don’t know if Anderson Silva will be there, but the others are great.”

Shogun is coming off a defeat to Jon Jones where he lost his title. Six years ago it was Shogun who was the young prodigy who took the MMA world by storm. Rua made a name for himself under the guidance of Cordeiro when he took the 2005 Pride Grand Prix. Now 29 years old, and going 3-3 in the UFC, Rua is going back to his roots. Its also important to mention that he will probably be training with Anderson Silva who definitely has Forrest Griffin all figured out. Rua is expected to face Forrest Griffin in a rematch slated for UFC 134 in Rio.

Rebney Makes Up For Bad Judging

Marcos Galvao was on the wrong side of a mediocre decision this past weekend at Bellator 41 versus Joe Warren. Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney told MMAjunkie, in an attempt to make it right, is giving a Galvao a spot in the promotion’s next bantamweight tournament. Rebney explained how hard of a job judging is, and was empathetic towards all judges, but also said the sport needs to strive for perfection. He also said we need to look at the history of where we are with judging, he said “The commissions and judges that oversee our events are appointed by the state or by the tribal nation that we work with. We don’t control them. Sometimes they do an amazing job, and sometimes they don’t. But they’re human beings, and our sport remains comparatively new when you compare it to boxing and other combat sports.”

Rebney also talked about how big of an opportunity this could turn out to be for Galvao. Rebney can’t change the decision, but said there are two ways to look at it. He said he prefers to be positive about it, he said “You’re talking about a kid who used to look for change on the streets of Brazil to feed himself, and now here he is with an opportunity to be on MTV2, make $100,000, and work his way to a title shot. There’s a good aspect to this story as well.”

Randy Couture Is Planning On Retiring After UFC 129 Bout

We have heard it before, and lets face it-I’m probably buying it this time as well. Randy Couture told the media during a conference call for UFC 129 that his fight with Lyoto Machida will be his last. Couture said “I believe this is my last fight. I know the UFC is probably going to have other ideas, especially with acquiring Strikeforce and all that. They’re probably going to try to draw me into another fight but I don’t think that’s going to happen. I want to stick to my guns and this is the last one.”

Couture said a lot goes on in your head when you are planning on retiring from combat sports, but he wants to make the decision on his own terms. He concluded “I will miss the competition immensely but I want to go out on my terms. I want to go out when I think it’s time to go out and not because I lost this fight or lost that fight or because I had an injury that precludes me from training the way I want to train. I want to make the decision on my own.”