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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
Mauricio "Shogun" Rua has lost four of his last five fights, getting stopped in three of those, but the former UFC Light Heavyweight Champion isn't walking away just yet.
He's got eyes on a move to middleweight, but his manager Eduardo Alonso said this week he'd like to see Rua take a catchweight fight at 195 lbs. first as a test cut.
"I would really like to see 'Shogun' in a catchweight bout next," Alonso said in an interview with Brazil's PVT (translated by Guilherme Cruz at MMAFighting.com). "I suggested some names to the UFC, and I would like it to be at 195 pounds, like Wanderlei Silva and Vitor Belfort did before dropping down. It would be a good way to test the weight cut, to see if he would perform better, how he would deal with the process, and if that would give him a new motivation."
"'Shogun' cutting all the way down to 185 pounds without any tests would be complicated. He will be at the next TUF: Brazil, and then he will start his camp, so it might me complicated [to fight at 185 pounds], and maybe he will be forced to fight at 205 one more time. But if I could choose, it would be a 195-pound catchweight."
As for who he'd have in mind for an opponent, Alonso named longtime UFC vet Michael Bisping as his top choice.
"If I could choose, I'd love to see him fighting Michael Bisping," Alonso said. "Bisping has a fight coming up in April, so it's too soon to imagine what's next, and it's not even set with the UFC yet if he's really going to fight at catchweight or not."
Bisping fights CB Dollaway in April at UFC 186, but he said after that, he's absolutely open to Alonso's suggested catchweight here.
I hear shoguns manager said shogun is interested in a fight with me at a catch weight of 195lbs. After my fight coming up, I'm in!!!
Penick's Analysis: It's a fight that could work, because neither is close to being in a truly relevant spot in their respective divisions. That said, I don't think anyone will be clamoring for Shogun fighting anybody at this point. He's been knocked out badly in two straight fights, and it just isn't likely to get much better from here.
[Mauricio "Shogun" Rua art by Grant Gould (c) MMATorch.com]
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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