Cecil Peoples, UFC 104 judge, defends his decision; believes Machida outscored Rua

By Natalia Baage October 27, 2009"First of all, what you need to understand is that from where the judges are sitting, we get to see things that the fans at home may miss. Mauricio Rua was being aggressive, but it wasn't effective aggressiveness, which is what we, as the judges, look for when scoring a fight. The way I saw it, Lyoto was landing the more cleaner and damaging strikes throughout the fight - if you take a look at the judging criteria, clean strikes are valued more so than the quantity of strikes landed. Although Rua threw a lot of low kicks, they were not as damaging as Lyoto's diverse attack in the earlier rounds, which is why I scored the first three rounds for Machida. You have to keep in mind we always favor the fighter who is trying to finish the fight. And leg kicks certainly don't do that. "When both fighters are engaged in a striking match, what I always look for is the fighter who is being judicious, picking his spots, being acc...