Legacy of The Dragon -- Lyoto Machida's 8 Greatest Victories
by Correspondent Written on June 11, 2009 
(Photo by Gary M. Prior/Getty Images). This is mostly in response to the fact that I keep seeing comments where people keep saying the same thing: “Lyoto Machida hasn’t fought all that many good fighters in his career.” “Lyoto Machida hasn’t proven himself.” While I agree that Lyoto Machida has to defend his title to truly solidify his legacy as a UFC champion, I want to set the record straight. In is 15-0 MMA career, Lyoto Machida has beaten a long list of MMA legends. He most certainly has proven himself.
Significant wins by Lyoto Machida before he signed with the UFC – in the order that they happened:
1.) “The American Psycho” Stephan Bonnar – This was the second fight of Machida’s career and the 4th fight in Stephan Bonnar’s career. This is the only fight in Bonnar’s entire career where he lost by stoppage. All of the rest of Bonnar’s career losses came by judges’ decisions. My summary of this fight: How to turn Stephan Bonnar’s face into hamburger. The longer this 1 round fight went, the more parts of Bonnar’s face were bleeding. Fight ended in the first round by doctor stoppage to due to Bonnar’s face being a total mess.
2.) Rich “Ace” Franklin – This fight occurred when Franklin was at or nearing the pinnacle of his skill and dominance in MMA. He had just come off destroying Evan Tanner in his UFC debut and TKO’d Edwin Dewees in the fight immediately before this. Coming into the fight against Lyoto Machida, Franklin was 12-0 and looking to be on top of the world. This was only the 3rd fight in Machida’s career. Result: Second round knockout. If anyone needed any proof that Lyoto was not catching Franklin at his best, Franklin won his next 8 fights in a row, won the UFC Middleweight Championship belt, and defended it twice. The Rich Franklin that was knocked out by Lyoto Machida was the Rich Franklin at the top of his game. Up until 2006 (enter the Spider, Anderson Silva), Machida was the only man to beat Franklin in his 22 fight career. And he didn’t just beat Franklin. He knocked him out.
3.) Sam Greco – The toughest fight of Lyoto Machida’s career to date came at the hands of Sam Greco who outweighed Machida by at least 45 lbs. This enormous Kyokushin Karate fighter did an impressive job of putting Machida in some fairly significant danger several times in the fight, something that nobody else seems to be able to figure out how to do. At no point did it look like Greco was going to finish off Machida, but he certainly did more damage to Machida than anyone else ever has, before or since. The points worth highlighting: The refereeing sucked. Greco repeatedly grabbed the ropes or corner to hold Machida in the clinch. The refereeing reminded me of WWE where the ref intentionally ignores things because it part of the script. Machida took his much bigger opponent down repeatedly – almost at will – but didn’t do anything all that significant once he got him to the ground. He got a full mount on Greco repeatedly, and from that position, he inadvertently handed Greco control on the ground by making the same mistake twice: Going to his back, trying for a submission, missing the submission. In both cases, he got pounded on for his trouble. That was the most significant action by Greco in the fight. Another significant thing this fight shows me: The boxing ring is a terrible ring for MMA. It’s too small and it’s just not a good battleground for MMA fighters. Also worth mentioning: Lyoto Machida showed he is a lot stronger wrestler than people give him credit for by overpowering a man who looked to be much bigger and stronger than him. This split decision win was the closest thing to a loss that Machida has ever seen. Very interesting that it came at the hands of a fellow karate fighter, even considering how much larger Greco was that Lyoto. This was Sam Greco’s only “official MMA loss.”
4.) “The Prodigy” BJ Penn – After beating Matt Hughes for the Welterweight title in 2004, BJ Penn left the UFC and signed with K-1. He was stripped of his title for doing so. At that point in his career, BJ Penn was widely considered the best pound for pound fighter in the world. In his run of non-UFC fights BJ beat everyone he fought with only one exception: Lyoto Machida. While it is true that Lyoto was significantly larger (29 lbs heavier) than BJ for this fight, it is very noteworthy that it was Machida that stopped BJ’s red-hot winning streak. Machida’s win over Penn proved that “The Prodigy” was mortal, and put the first significant thread of doubt about BJ Penn in the minds of MMA fans at that time. This loss effectively ended his number 1 Pound for Pound status.
In 2007 the UFC signed “The Dragon.” The handed him 3 mediocre fighters in a row, and Machida posted 3 mediocre wins in a row – which is to say he did not submit anyone and he did not knock anyone out. It is highly noteworthy that in these tree Majority Decision wins, Machida never lost a single round and was never really hurt. He was never in any real danger, while he completely dominated the opposition. Unfortunately, for MMA fans who know nothing outside the UFC, this was their introduction to Lyoto Machida. These three fights were enough in the minds of UFC fans to label Machida as “a boring fighter.” As a result, he didn’t get anywhere near a title fight despite the significant resume of wins over quality opponents he had prior to the UFC, and despite his perfect MMA record. It was not until his 4th fight in the UFC before Machida began his run of:
Significant wins in the UFC:
1.) Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou – This was Machida’s first fight in the UFC against a big name opponent. Sokoudjou was coming off two very impressive knockout victories over legendary opponents. The first was against Antonio Rogerio Nogueira and the second was Ricardo Arona. This was Sokoudjou’s UFC debut and there were high expectations for him. Lyoto Machida choked out Sokoudjou in the second round.
2.) “The Huntington Beach Bad Boy” Tito Ortiz – If I have to explain to you why Tito Ortiz is a big-name fighter, then you are absolutely hopeless. Former Light Heavyweight Champion with 5 title defenses, a feat that nobody in the LHW division has ever done, before or since Tito. Even when he lost, Tito was making a fight of it every single time he stepped into the Octagon. In the fight immediately before this, Tito put the very first blemish on Rashad Evans undefeated record with a controversial draw. Most people feel that Ortiz rightfully won that fight. Then Tito Ortiz fought Lyoto Machida. Machida did what Machida always does – he made a great fighter look absolutely terrible. Tito was unable to take Machida down, try after try after try. Tito was unable to mount any significant offense at all against the Dragon. Meanwhile, Lyoto picked him apart. He slammed Ortiz at the end of the 1st round. He dropped Ortiz towards the end of the fight with a kick to the liver area. Machida made Tito look like an amateur – not an easy feat – and gave the MMA legend a rude ending to his UFC and MMA career.
3.) Thiago Silva – Thiago Silva does not have a nickname that I’m aware of, but if I had to give him one, it would be “The Wrecking Machine.” He came storming onto the UFC scene with 3 knockouts and 1 submission. Among his victims were “The Sandman” James Irvin and Houston “The Assassin” Alexander. His once-undefeated 13 win record consisted of 10 knockouts, 2 submissions and 1 decision. This guy destroys people. Everyone up until he fought Machida that is. Lyoto Machida did the same thing to Thiago Silva that he had done to Tito Ortiz – made a great fighter look like an amateur. In this fight, Machida seems to have rekindled ‘the real Dragon’ that KO’d Franklin and Bonnar so many years earlier. He knocked Silva down and stunned him repeatedly, finally leaving Thiago Silva knocked out cold, lying on the octagon floor at the end of Round 1, and ending Thiago’s perfect MMA record.
4.) “Sugar” Rashad Evans – So finally “the Dragon” got his title shot. Rashad Evans had overcome one challenge after another and had never been beaten before. I won’t comment further because I’m going to assume that everyone has seen this fight. Machida picked him apart, made him look silly and for the second fight in a row, left his undefeated opponent out cold on the floor of the octagon.
There are many noteworthy things about Machida’s career. The most significant is pretty obvious: He’s never lost. He also continues to make great fighters look bad and take virtually no damage in his fights. He seems to fight his best when fighting the best – most of his unimpressive fights have been against mediocre competition. He is the first Karate fighter to make Karate look truly dominant in the MMA world. In the pound for pound rankings, Lyoto is the only man who has never been beaten and never been in any serious danger of being stopped by his opponent. Anderson Silva has lost 4 fights. George St Pierre has been beaten by Matt Hughes on the ground, and shown vunerability in his stand-up game at the hands of BJ Penn and Matt Serra.
Fedor Emelianenko has been stunned and slammed and manhandled on multiple occasions, only to battle through and win. (And I refuse to count Fedor’s one loss on account of it being ridiculous and stupid.) So even the likes of Fedor has been is serious danger of being finished off by their opponent.
I could go on. What it all comes down to: Lyoto Machida has probably had the most dominant MMA career ever. He has racked up impressive wins over the best fighters in the world, while taking virtually not damage at all in the process. We don’t have to say, “lets wait and see how good he is” because he’s already beaten so many living legends of the sport and he’s made it look easy. I think its high time people start respecting what Lyoto Machida has already achieved.
I expect Lyoto Machida to continue to win and impress MMA fans. Now that he is champion, we don’t really have to worry about him being matched against second-rate competition in the foreseeable future. Since he seems to perform best when matched against the best, this is very good news indeed.
