with Alistair Overeem and knocked the Dutch fighter out at 3:37 of the first round. By the end of his run at PRIDE, Rua was ranked as the top Light heavyweight in the world by Nokaut, Sherdog, and MMAWeekly.com. Ultimate Fighting Championship After the UFC bought out PRIDE, Shogun signed on with the UFC and made his debut in the organization at UFC 76. Facing The Ultimate Fighter 1 Winner Forrest Griffin, Rua was favoured to win. However, Rua had difficulty with Griffin and became exhausted early on and was dominated for the remainder of the fight. He succumbed to a rear-naked choke in the final seconds of the third round. He then had surgery for a pre-existing knee injury. Rua left Chute Boxe in January 2008 and opened his own camp, Universidade da luta, with his brother Murilo in Curitiba. In the months following his surgery Rua completely reruptured damaged ligaments during training and was forced to undergo a second knee surgery. This forced him to drop out of UFC 85. He was granted a rematch with Mark Coleman at UFC 93 in Dublin. Shogun defeated Coleman by TKO with 24 seconds left in the third round. The fight earned co-Fight of the Night honors and a $40,000 bonus. In spite of the award, Rua drew criticism from fans for his lackluster performance against Coleman, who was 44 years old at the time and had not competed in over two years. Rua's next fight took place at UFC 97 in Montreal against former longtime UFC Light heavyweight Champion Chuck Liddell. Rua won by KO due to strikes. With this victory, Rua returned to the top-ten rankings for the Light heavyweight division, and the UFC decided to put him next in line for a title shot. Title bouts with Machida At UFC 104 Shogun lost by unanimous decision to UFC Light heavyweight Champion Lyoto Machida. All three judges scored the bout 48–47 in Machida's favor. Journalists and UFC President Dana White had scored the fight in Rua's favor. Due to the controversy of the UFC 104 decision, a rematch was immediately announced and took place at UFC 113 on 8 May 2010 in Montreal. Rua won via knockout at 3:35 of round 1, after dropping Machida with a right and following up with punches on the ground. He was awarded the UFC Light heavyweight Championship, becoming just the second fighter