Robbery? I'm inclined to say it was a noticeably bad decision, in my opinion. I'll admit that I was leaning toward classifying it as a robbery in the moments after the decision was announced for Machida to retain his title. But the statistics nerd in me wanted to see what the fight stats were. Knowing that Fight Metric and Compustrike probably won't have the stats available until tomorrow or Monday, I decided to rewatch the fight (with the sounds off) to score landed strikes (since this was almost exclusively a standup battle). When I orignially watched this fight, I had it 4 rounds to 1. The only round I gave Machida was round 3. I did think a couple of early rounds were close but it seems obvious that Shogun won. I do want to share my findings with you, though, from my second viewing of the fight. And keep in mind that I'm, admittedly, not an authority on scoring landed shots. I think my numbers, however, won't be too far from the stats that get officially released:

Landed Blows:

Round 1- Rua-13; Machida- 9 (I still think that Rua won this round, though it was a competitive round)

Round 2- Rua-13; Machida- 11 (I can definitely see someone scoring this for Machida; I'm unsure who won this one, to be honest. Rua eeked out a statistical advantage basically because of landed knees in the clinch against the fence which seemed more impressive the first time I watched the fight, but less so the second time. I could see this as a Machida round, partly because his connect % was definitely higher. Possibly a draw?)

Round 3- Rua- 12; Machida- 15 (Machida's best round. I gave this round to him the first time I watched the fight and I gave it to him the second time as well.)

Round 4- Rua- 8; Machida- 4 (The action really seemed to slow in this round. Frankly I didn't think either fighter did much at all. A round for Rua most likely.)

Round 5- Rua-14; Machida- 7 (Rua's best round, arguably.)

Totals- Rua-60; Machida- 46

Average Round Stats- Rua-12; Machida- 9.2

The first time I watched the fight I scored it 4 rounds to 1 for Rua. The second time I watched it I leaned toward either 3 rounds to 2 or 3 rounds to 1 with a draw round.

A couple of points of possible interest: Shogun seemed to do a little more damage to Machida so I think a judge has to give him an edge there. Conversely, when these stats come out I think you'll see a noticable edge for Machida in efficiency. I noticed a lot more misses by Shogun and blows that didn't land cleanly than I did during the first viewing of this fight. So here's the thing: If the numbers above are close to being accurate, plus if Machida has a healthy edge in connect %, I still would argue that Machida won. But could it still be classified a robbery? I don't think so. I save that term for the Holyfield-Lewis decisions of the world. I'm not sure this qualifies.But I know that emotions are pretty high right now because of the bad decision. And I won't argue that Lyoto won this one because I don't believe that he did.