Can Randy Couture answer the Lyoto Machida riddle?
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- May
- 26
Joe Rogan said it best this past Saturday. We have entered the era of Lyoto Machida. Machida brings a style so unique into mixed martial arts, and there hasn’t been a fighter who has come remotely close to threatening his position in the UFC.
Machida has fought 17 rounds in the UFC and has never lost a round. The closest he has ever come to being in danger was against Tito Ortiz when Tito locked in a triangle choke; Tito transitioned into a triangle arm bar and Lyoto eventually escaped. Dumb move on Tito’s part. Other then that, we’ve never seen Lyoto in any danger.
Rashad Evans didn’t put much of a fight up at all. I thought that Greg Jackson might come up with some type of fool proof game plan for Rashad, but that wasn’t the case. When it was all said and done, Rashad Evans was on the receiving end of a spectacular knockout and a new UFC light heavyweight champion is crowned.
Rampage Jackson gets Lyoto next. Jackson has about as much of a chance against Lyoto as Rashad did. Both fighters come from a wrestling pedigree, but have favored their stand up game in the past year or so. I am not looking forward to that fight because I think the outcome will be pretty similar to the Rashad fight.
As I look over the UFC light heavyweight roster, I don’t see any standout fighter who can be a legitimate threat to Lyoto. That is, until, I remembered that Randy Couture has fought in the light heavyweight division and is a former UFC light heavyweight champion.
Randy lives for these types of fights. If there is one MMA fighter who can come up with a perfect game plan for any fighter, it’s Randy Couture.
Randy is too small for the heavyweight division anyway. We are entering the era of the super heavyweight. The top contenders in the heavyweight division are actually cutting weight to drop to 265 pounds. These men are physical beasts. Randy Couture entered his last fight around 220 pounds. A drop to light heavyweight best suits him.
Thoughts? Comments?
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, May 26th, 2009 at 12:01 pm by Larry Vollmer.
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I agree with your prediction on his fight with Rampage, but a fight with Randy today wouldn’t be much different. Perhaps Randy 5 years ago, a quicker younger Randy would be different. Randy does have a great ability to create effective game plans, but against Machida’s explosive defensive style, I don’t think he could take him with his age and speed.
Thanks for the comment Dustin. I’d be anxious to see that match. Time is certainly ticking for Randy, though.
I look forward to the rampage fight as I keep seeing machita get more and more aggresive. Plus the fact that I don’t recall him ever really being punched in the face is amazing. I would not like to see randy go against him cuz I don’t want to see him take another loss. But man that ko of rashad made my night.
The only other two names that stand out in the light-heavyweight division to challenge Machida are Forrest Griffin and Shogun Rua. Forrest always has a chance to win a fight, and has risen to the occasion many times before, but i’m not sure if his attacking style would be successful against Machida. Maybe his coach (Randy Couture) could think of a great game plan.
Shogun is really the wildcard of the division. I think he has the potential to beat anyone in the division IF he can continue to improve his cardio and evolve. He’s got an explosive Muy Thai that can give anyone problems standing up, a good chin, and the ability to pull off quick and exotic submissions.
Good points Alec. I am still not convinced that Rua is back in top form, I will need to see another A level performance before I jump to that conclusion.
Forrest Griffin has the ability to beat anyone, but his chin is very suspect and Machida’s strikes are dead on.
Also I think Anderson Silva could pose interesting problems, but that probably will never happen since they are from the same camp.
He def would, but we will probably never get to see that match up.
RAMPAGE WONT HAVE ANY LEGS AFTER HE FIGHTS LYOTO.ALSO RANDY 5 YEARS AGO OR NOW WOULD STILL GET HANDLED BY MACHIDA.RANDY WOULD GET FINISHED WITH STRIKES.IF RANDY IS SOO GOOD WITH GAMEPLANS WHY COULDNT HE BEAT LIDDELL ALL 3 TIMES? LIDEELL IS A BAD MATCH UP? WELL SO IS MACHIDA!
I am not talking the Randy Couture from 5 years ago, I am talking the evolved Randy Couture who came back from retirement and manhandled Tim Sylvia to become the UFC heavyweight champion.
personally i think that lyoto just possesses to much for anybody in the light heavy weight division to deal with. Randy doesn’t have the cardio lyoto does. face it he is 40. and IMO rashad is better than rampage. I don’t think lyoto will lose his title till he is forced to fight silva.
Randy Couture is one of the finest conditioned athletes in the sport, and he is 44 not 40. Randy would not gas fighting Machida.
First of all, you have to hit Machida if you’re going to stand up with him. That hasn’t happened yet. Name anyone that stands and fights and you’re naming a past or future Machida KO victim, evidence would suggest.
Couture was KOd twice by standing up with the Ice Man. Machida is more dangerous than Liddell standing and is much more versed than the average 205 guy on the ground.
Someone is going to have to grab him and strike from within and hope to hurt him with something. Gotta keep him in the clinch and strike—cut the distance without necessarily going to the ground.
Randy can’t shoot him to get him down like maybe he could have 5 years ago. Evidence also suggests that Machida is much stronger in the clinch than he gets credit for.
When considering Randy its easy to consider that only he is doing the game-plannning. Machida also gets to game-plan if I’m not mistaken. Plus, who the hell you gonna train against to prepare for him? Right now there’s no obvious solution to the Machida puzzle. He’s badass, brutal, and mean, yet polished, precise, and professional.
The Randy Couture that fought Chuck Liddell 3x is not the same Randy Couture you see today. His boxing has improved leaps and bounds since then.
Of course Machida gets to game plan, but Randy Couture has it broken down to a science. He just understands the sport. I am not saying he would defeat Machida, but I don’t think there is another fighter that would give Machida a harder time.
I’d say that Machida got out of that armbar attempt pretty handily, but that’s besides the point. The only person who has found some success by fighting a standing battle with Lyoto was BJ Penn, who landed about 57% percent of his strikes. He’s also the only person to come close to surpassing Machida’s guard by moving to half-guard. Fighters shouldn’t look to prolonging battles on the ground and for wrestling to work, it will need to be about as good as Josh Barnett’s or Matt Lindland’s.
Couture is an interesting pick, but I don’t see how he’ll get around Machida’s superior lateral movement and as such he won’t be able to bully him against the cage. It’s also dangerous to shoot from the distance Machida tends to fight at. Regardless, I’m still looking forward to his fight with Big Nog come UFC 102.
As for Rampage, his only shot is to remember his wrestling roots and improve upon them, because his boxing and chin will not be enough to carry him to victory. He desperately needs to develop his footwork because he currently fights flatfooted and he needs to start checking kicks. Rampage can’t let Machida throw the first blow, which was central to Rashad’s game plan. He needs to be assertive, not reckless.
Shogun might be a good contender, but he definitely needs to be tested more. A match with Rashad would be excellent to see how he stacks up to rest of the light heavyweight division.
Randy is a great fighter no question. Please don’t forget that he was kind of man handling Lesnar (for a bit) until those “TRUCK BOMBS” came flying in. Lyoto is a whole different breed, the likes of which we have not seen before in the UFC. I once heard him say that his father told him he has Samurai blood in him and he was raised in a dojo basically since birth. He is amazing. Karate / BJJ / AKIDO / SUMMO WRESTLING (Look it up, it’s true) are all his disciplines. I believe he is the best lb. for lb. fighter in the world. Thank you Lyoto Machida.
I agree he is the best lb for lb fighter in the world. He even drinks his own pee everyday. He is like no other fighter on this planet.
Terrible analysis. Couture has done poorly against strikers whereas Rampage has improved his stand-up considerably since his Pride days.
GK – Maybe you missed the the Tim Sylvia and Gabe Gonzaga fights. I don’t see Randy doing horrible against strikers in the past two years.
How do you classify Lyoto as a striker anyway? He only has 2 convincing knockouts in the UFC and 5 in his career. One TKO was granted to do “exhaustion” and another from cuts. In 15 fights, I wouldn’t call that enough to label him a “striker”.
Rampage’s stand up is on par with Rashad’s, except Rashad is a lot faster.
Omar – he did get out of the arm bar easily, the triangle he was caught in is another story. For some reason Tito transitioned to the arm bar , probably thinking he could end the fight faster, and lost the submission all together. That triangle was locked in tight.
Are you serious? You don’t classify Lyoto as a striker? That alone shows how much you really know about the fight game. And the reason Tito transitioned to the arm bar is because the triangle WAS NOT locked in tight. If you are LOCKED IN TIGHT in a triangle, you are DONE.. you only have a moment to get out, he was hardly locked in. I honestly can’t believe you are talking about Couture as if he is an ungodly striker, he fought Gonzaga, Lesnar, and Tim Sylvia who recently got DESTROYED in 10 seconds by an old, fat, Ray Mercer. So to say because Couture beat Sylvia as your reasoning for him being able to contend with THE BEST striker in MMA today, is ridiculous. For some reason Tito transitioned, haha, yea, because the triangle wasn’t locked.. thats funny as hell.
Oh boy. Your post gave me a good laugh.
I do train for myself, read the bio.
That was a tight triangle, watch the fight again, maybe with a pair of glasses this time.
Tito transitioned because he wanted to end the fight quickly, and with Lyoto’s arm dangling out for the taking he made that transition. Watch the post fight interview.
and did you really just call Lyoto Machida THE BEST striker in MMA today? Pretty hilarious.
I think Machida would give Randy far too much to deal with. I agree Randy is a great fighter with many great victories, but I see guys like Machida/Fedor/Anderson/GSP etc. as the a new era of fighters that will give many of the ‘old’ giants a very hard time. Everything they do is at the top level, whereas a guy like Randy has greco roman at top level, and everything else is sort of ‘good enough’ (that isn’t mean to sound insulting, I just couldn’t find a better way of saying it).
I really don’t see anybody threating Machida and his style. He’s a new but “old” breed, when mma first started it was stuff like karate that were concidered one dementional..when it came to fighting a guy named Royce Gracie ….Gracie brought a new more or less under the radar style of fighting ….Brazilian jujitsu and defeated martial arts styles like karate, Kung Fu, boxing etc.. With ease..so mma really began and all that followed was kickboxing and jujitsu …so machida comes out of nowhere with an art nobody Really even practises for mma competition and it kinda became a lost art…so it’s more like perfect timing for machida who is also a black belt in Brazilian jujitsu..there are two and only two people I see that can solve his style or just break his will…one is Anderson silva who as we all know will never fight his beloved friend and “brother” machida and fedor emilienenko who signed with gay ass strikeforce…so there you have it..this guys going to not be beatin for a long time if not ever