UFC 98

[CARTEL]

I guess that's better than drinking someone elses 

[SinCitysmallGUY]

I thought it would be interesting to look back at some of the things that have been said about Lyoto Machida by the writers and editors of this site over the past few years.  So here, through links and quotes, is a look back at the rise of Machida.  It may be a bit long, but it should be fun for some of you BloodyElbow nerds out there.

A lot of people forget that Machida was scheduled to face Forrest Griffin in his second UFC fight back at UFC 70 (which ultimately turned into David Heath following Forrest pulling out):

The Machida vs Griffin match is also exciting. Machida coming heavily touted from wins over Rich Franklin, Steven Bonnar, and B.J. Penn and did well in his UFC debut over Hogar. Forrest will be fighting for his future in the UFC so it should be a standup war.

There was also talk of Machida getting Shogun Rua in his first trip to the UFC which quickly turned into Forrest Griffin/Rua:

Putting him in against Machida for his first fight is literally risking the franchise. Machida has fought twice in the UFC but neither fight has been aired and he is as boring as hell -- and I'm a huge fan of his! To the average fan a Rua/Machida match would pit two Brazilians they've never heard of and would likely result in Machida's counter-fighting style dragging things to a decision.

Kid Nate once suggested that Machida should drop to middleweight:

Among several good ideas, he recommends that several 205 pounders move down including Michael Bisping. I can only add to that the Ryoto Machida should do the same. He's a long way from a light heavyweight title shot but as the man who KO'd Rich Franklin before it was cool, he could get a shot at Anderson Silva in only a few months with a couple of key wins.



From the UFC 76 Wrap Up:

Lyoto Machida vs Kazuhiro Nakamura
Like I've said before, I'm a sucker for the technicians. Machida is just smooth as silk and he lands a lot of effective strikes and has good ground work. Nakamura really looked bad -- part of that comes from fighting the elusive Machida but there was probably also a degree of Octagon shock. I was amused at his pre-fight antics, but you've really got to bring it in the fight and he really didn't show much. I'd love to see Machida fight Houston Alexander -- am very interested in seeing how he would deal with Alexander's aggression and power.

Jason Miller was...slightly wrong in this prediction:

(Soukoudjou's) going to beat the piss out of Machida. Machida doesn't even know what he's got into. He's going to find out within the first minute of that fight.

Michael Rome had the following to say when Tito was offered Machida:

Tito may not accept, because his contract is tied to buyrates and Machida is a non-draw.  However, he needs a win, and beating Machida would put him back into title contention.  If this fight is made, I think most people in the MMA internet community will pick Machida, but I think this is a good fight for Tito.  Machida is relatively untested against big, strong wrestlers.

Then we went through a will he won't he mess with Tito considering the offer and the build up being all about Tito's worth if he won.  Of course 4 out of 5 BE staffers knew Tito wasn't going to pull it out.

Following the Ortiz fight Kid Nate took a look at "The Machida Divide" among the fans:

Personally, I'm a huge Machida fan. I thought his performance last night was dazzling in parts -- especially in round one and to a lesser extent in round two -- but have to agree with Luke's analysis on Any Given Saturday that Tito's performance in round three was very impressive. I'd give all three rounds to Lyoto because that knee to the liver was brutal, but Tito's triangle is one of those moves that was so close you could cry for him.

I want to see Machida vs Thiago Silva -- battle of the undefeated Brazilians. Total opposites. Fire and Ice. But both are fast rising contenders.

Nate chimed in with another article with various views on Machida from media personalities.  Most interesting of which was this quote from Rami Genauer:

If you watched this fight, you saw the extremely rare occurrence of an upper-echelon fighter scoring zero points in a full round. In the first round of the fight, Tito Ortiz attempted 18 strikes and two takedowns. He landed none of them. In fact, it took Ortiz a full eight minutes before he landed his first significant offensive technique. FightMetric awards points for effectiveness based on the historical quality of techniques landed. In the first round, Machida out-pointed Ortiz 41-0. In the second round, it was 62-2.

Let us not forget that fighters were turning down offers to fight Machida at this point and Forrest Griffin made it clear that he didn't like the matchup:

He admitted:  "I want nothing to do with that guy.  Not at all."

The UFC soon found an opponent in undefeated Thiago Silva which led to both men talking about the importance of the fight:

"I know that this fight will show who is going to lose. The event will sell it this way, two unbeaten guys. I wanna do a great fight, a great show."

Of course Thiago got hurt and the fight was pushed back from UFC 89 to 94.  But Silva made no bones about the fact that he was not impressed with Lyoto's game:

Q: Which of Machida’s fight impressed you the most?
A: I don’t know. Actually, there aren’t any of his fights I really like. Lyoto’s a fighter who runs more than he fights. He’s not a fighter who will knock me out easily. He scores points, and I’ll make it hard for him to score. I already faced the toughest fighters. I believe it will be more of a psychological fight than a physical fight for me.

Q: Which fighters have you faced that you believe are tougher than Machida?
A: Houston Alexander, Tomasz Drwal, James Irvin. Actually, I’ve only faced tough fighters in the UFC -- just like Lyoto -- who already defeated many top fighters. I’m on my way to the title. I want this belt, and it will be mine

Michael Rome tried to put Thiago back in his place with this analysis:

I've seen him tagged over and over again on his feet by James Irvin, Tomas Drwal, and Antonio Mendes.  I don't see any way he can come close to competing with Lyoto Machida in a standing fight, and I don't think he has the wrestling to bring things to the ground.

This proved to be extremely spot on as Machida knocked Thiago out as time expired in their UFC 94 bout.  This led to Nate sharing some statistics from FightMetric that showed just HOW dominant Machida had become.

I noted following the fight that Machida was getting better reactions during weigh-ins and fighter intros than he had in the past and that the fight had made him a star:

Machida received a nice reaction at the weigh-ins, certainly not the kind of reaction one would expect after reading the message board talk of mainstream hatred leading up to the fight.  Then Machida received a warm reception at the fight, and Silva was lightly booed as he was introduced.  Finally Lyoto fought the perfect fight, turning Thiago's aggression against him, working from the outside with strikes and if distance was closed he threw a few strikes and used a trip takedown to further dictate the pacing and location of the fight.  As the crowd erupted at the devastating knockout I was confident that Machida had just become a star.

Rampage Jackson would go on to face Keith Jardine with the understanding that Rampage would get a shot at champion Rashad Evans with a win and if he lost that shot would go to Lyoto Machida.  Jackson would win the fight but the turnaround for a fight with Rashad (which would have been a short camp due to the Mir injury) looked to be slightly too quick as Dave Meltzer reported:

At the press conference, Jackson said he didn't know about the fight with Rashad Evans being moved up to May 23 until 15 minutes before he got out...He was clearly not thrilled about it.  Dana White said they would wait a few days to give Jackson a chance to assess how he felt coming out of a tough fight and noted if Jackson turned it down, that Machida had already verbally accepted.

This is, of course, exactly what happened.  And as we all saw last night (and Joe Rogan so perfectly put it) it led to the beginning of the Lyoto Machida era.

[SinCitysmallGUY]

There is chatter about Sherk's game plan going into last night, which at this juncture are more than relevant. But what underwrites that game plan are the skills and abilities of the individual fighter (or the perceived skill), so when the gameplan fails it's important to inquire whether the skills (or lack thereof) play any role in the defeat. In Sherk's case, the decision to essentially box/kickbox with Edgar sealed his fate from the outset. Sherk simply didn't have the skillset to justify the gameplan, so let's look at some the problems to help us better understand why Sherk's reliance on his limited Thai boxing was a strategic error.

1. Sherk's stance is troubling. He barely threatens the takedown by working from a constant position of a slightly lowered elevation in the early going, but that unfortunately anchors him and prevents him from utilizing a looser, mobile style that can more easily create pivoted angles or a wide variety of distances. As he currently operates, he is only able to inch forward linearly. His stance almost looks like a sugar foot stance that Hughes is doing when he goes southpaw.

2. Sherk is a head hunter. He does posses a good arsenal of lead and rear uppercuts, left hooks and double jab, but almost never goes to the body. This allows opposition like Edgar to work more simplistic defenses and put together better counter combinations that, in turn, can land on Sherk's body. Sherk's head hunting also permits opposition to more predictably game plan and comfortably prepare defensive jab slips, step out angles, and high percentage combinations.

3. Sherk is flat footed. This fits more into the issues I articulated with his stance earlier, but again, it's important to keep in mind that if Sherk were regularly using the sugarfoot stance to more consistently incorporate takedowns, then Sherk could be forgiven sitting on his heels. As it is, not only is his mobility compromised, but it's reduced without the benefit of the constant threat of shots.

4. Sherk uses almost no head movement. The problems with this are obvious, but they're compounded by Sherk's other issues. Sherk not only leaves his head stationary for opposition, but his head is in the proper place for opponents who throw three-punch combinations after cutting angles while Sherk is facing the wrong direction.

5. Sherk only threatens with the right leg kicks and a head hunting attack. Sherk's opposition understand he may throw a handful of leg kicks himself and will likely never throw middle or high kicks. This limits the number, type and effectiveness of available combinations. Worse, while Sherk has short legs, he has even shorter arms. Sherk will never likely develop a dynamic kicking game that will send oppositoin crashing to the mat a la Rashad Evans vs. Sean Salmon, but it could make them more hesitant if they believed Sherk was capable of landing more than lead uppercuts.

6. Sherk's anchored, straightforward movement allows opposition to make Sherk counterpunch. Sherk did try to initiate exchanges, but Edgar often chose to not respond. Sherk is quite capable at putting three and four punch combinations together (to the head), but Sherk's one directional movement offers more of an opportunity to Edgar and others to simply circle out of harm's way and initiate exchanges at a time of their choosing.

7. He has no knockout power. His head hunting could be slightly forgiven were he, like Paul Buentello, capable of actually putting opposition to sleep with a somewhat limited striking arsenal. So while Sherk can do some damage with his quick punches, oppositon need not be overly concerned the lights are going to get shut off if they stand too long with Sherk. And given that Sherk is all too comfortable standing without the ability to KO opposition, he is forced to technically defeat them with his striking skills. The problem here should be clear.

8. Sherk rarely uses feints or threatens level changes. For an adept wrestler with arguably the fastest shot in MMA (I think Ishida might have him, but it's close), Sherk inexplicably chooses to shoot less than a handful of times over the course of three rounds. What's frustrating is that while Sherk does occasionally get desperate with shots attempts, Sherk does have excellent timing. A more diverse striking arsenal could would allow Sherk the opportunity to not telegraph his shots as he does after three or four attempts. It appears Sherk's only got a handful of combinations that allow him to get opposition to cover and to get the distance closed. More combinations with more diverse shot location means more opportunity for takedowns or takedown threating.

Sherk could've made the fight a much more competitive affair by using his reliable wrestling and extreme conditioning to make up for limitedness in his stand up arsenal, but the MMAA product simply could not or chose not to make the requisite adjustments. And unfortunately, he paid dearly for it.

[SinCitysmallGUY]

You can't say Dana White doesn't take the long view in running the Zuffa fighting empire. Last night at the post-UFC 98 press conference he announced Lyoto Machida's first title defense will be against Quinton "Rampage" Jackson, per MMA Weekly:

The victory on Saturday was a validation of his investment in the Machida's tactical, karate-based style, which drew early criticism from fans.

"We bought the WFA to acquire his contract and Rampage's," added White. "I've always thought this kid was talented."

Dana made that investment back at the end of 2006 and Rampage was already well-enough known to be part of the story when the purchase was made, but Lyoto was not, from MMA Weekly:

Sources close to the situation told MMAWeekly.com that Quinton Jackson and Heath Herring are two of the fighters that are part of the deal and will soon be fighting in the UFC. Comments from UFC President and Zuffa co-owner Dana White in Zuffa's press release would seem to support that information: "Zuffa is committed to giving our fans the best fights between the best fighters in the world. This acquisition helps us continue fulfilling that goal... bringing the WFA fighters into the Zuffa family is the best thing that could happen for the fighters - and for the fans."

Its interesting to note that the WFA purchase has now produced two champions in the marquee 205lb decision division while the much more heralded and expensive PRIDE acquisition has only produced one interim champion in Nogueira.

[gracie bjj]

machidas urine will be bottled and sold as the official energy drink of the ufc