Mauricio “Shogun” Rua had a snoozefest with Mark Coleman back at UFC 94 in Ireland. The former PRIDE standout had a few pennies in the gas tank, at best, and took nearly all three rounds to put away an aging Coleman. The bout had all the makings of a furious grudge match, but fell a mile short.

I said after the fight that if Shogun were to show up in such condition again in his next fight, it could very well be his last in the UFC. It sounds like Rua is training to remain relevant, as told by the following to Yahoo! Sports.

“Chuck Liddell’s right hand is a dangerous weapon. He has a very good right uppercut and right overhand so we are really taking this into consideration, it is part of the training.

We are training specifically for his style and I think this is the evolution of mixed martial arts: people are training for the strongest points of their opponents, and their weakest points as well.

Although I think there is a lot of pressure involved in this fight I think everyone expects him to win - he is the favourite. People think I did not fight well in my last fight so people are expecting him to win.

A lot of people are ruling me out. I think this is good; it gives me more motivation to train, to train hard and prepare, and I fell like I have nothing to lose.”

A lot of people also ruled him out after a cardio-less loss (submission) to Forrest Griffin, but that clearly did not provide enough motivation to train properly for the Coleman scrap. Shogun’s dedication is suspect as of now, and will need to dazzle against The Iceman to silence naysayers.