Does Lyoto deserve a shot?
Posted by Alan Conceicao on February 1st, 2009
UFC 94 has concluded, and with it, another quality win for Lyoto Machida. It is his 14th as a professional MMA fighter, and his 6th in the UFC. He has cemented a place in or just outside the top 5 as a light heavyweight, and seems in line for a title shot. However, how far is he away from getting a title shot? So much has been said about Machida supposedly deserving such a fight that many simply presuppose that it is the case. Oddly, its not at all true. Certainly Machida is knocking on the door, but it is by no means necessarily the time to open it.
A brief perusal of Lyoto’s record does, on the surface, look impressive. Any undefeated record would. What’s so notable in his UFC career are the number of guys no longer in the UFC. Kaz Nakamura, David Heath, Sam Hoger, and Sokoudjou have proven to be anything but top 205lb fighters in 2009, and while Lyoto has wins over all of them, those wins for anyone else right now would be bordering on meaningless. Tito Ortiz seems to be perhaps at the end of his long career, and will almost certainly not return to the UFC. Wins outside the UFC include a young Stephan Bonnar (himself proving to not be a top 25 talent tonight), the UFC Lightweight champion, some K-1 kickboxers, and a heavyweight Rich Franklin.
Tonight he added on Thiago Silva, himself an undefeated heavyweight with a highly questionable record. His win over Houston Alexander has twice been copied in similar or more impressive fashion, and the W he picked up against James Irvin was anything but earned. None of his other wins came against high level fighters at 205, and after being so easily disposed of, one wonders whether or not Thiago’s bite was ever better than his bark. Unfortunately, it may be some time before we learn just how good Thiago is, and that may be strong reason to not necessarily rush Lyoto into a title situation.
Another strong reason is the depth of talent at 205lbs. Rashad Evans has very, very reasonable competition on the horizon in either Forrest Griffin or the winner of Keith Jardine/Rampage Jackson. While Lyoto has faced many solid competitors, he lacks the singularly defining win that any of these fighters have, much less multiple such wins. Forrest has wins over Rampage Jackson and Shogun Rua, each the top light heavyweight in the world at the time that he fought them. Rashad undefeated record features stops over Liddell and Griffin that easily overshadow any of Lyoto’s wins. Rampage Jackson, meanwhile, has the best resume of any of the three, having beaten Dan Henderson, Chuck Liddell, and Wanderlei Silva in just the last two years. Lyoto hasn’t beaten anyone at their level. In fact, you can make reasonable arguments for Jardine (wins over Liddell, Vera, Griffin, Gouveia) as well, particularly if he beats Rampage Jackson in two months time.
Now, obviously, the UFC Light Heavyweight division can’t all be a game of never ending hot potato between a set of 3 challengers, but for Lyoto to break into title contention, he needs to beat someone in that matrix of 3 (potentially 4) names. Lyoto is past needing pure wins, he needs wins against proven names in their primes. Until he has one, why bother with the empty calls for what he “deserves”?
EDIT: Seems I’m not the only guy thinking this way. 12 hours after my article, Kelvin Hunt says, well, everything I did.
February 1st, 2009 at 11:15 am
Hater!
February 1st, 2009 at 1:40 pm
Evans and Machida came up about the same time and faced the same calibre of opponents in the UFC. Evans had the luck and skill to be more marketable and got the spotlight matchup with Chuck Liddell while Machida got his bout postponed until now. That’s the only real difference in their records. Evans got Chuck while Machida got Thiago Silva. They both finished their fights in spectacular fashion and in Evans case it gave him the title fight while Machida was still waiting on the sidelines. Machida has proven that he’s a contender. The easy way to figure out if he belongs is to give him the fight and let him make his record like Rashad Evans did.
February 1st, 2009 at 2:45 pm
This is a perfect example of a UFC corporate hack and apologist trying to rationalize the fact that a fighter at 14-0 has not been given a title shot when Brock Lesnar has already been given one and is being given another.
Absolute nonsense. Did Dana White write this?
February 1st, 2009 at 3:13 pm
Yeah dude didn’t you know? Alan is our Kevin Iole.
February 1st, 2009 at 5:29 pm
Yeah it is pretty lolzy.
Alan is mos def. on the Zuffa payroll.
On the real, I love Lyoto and while Alan lays out a good argument, I can see no reason to keep him away from title contention. I still think that Rampage deserves his shot and Forrest deserves a rematch. Seriously, I wish UFC would just run a tournament already. Other wise we have no clue what is going on in their heads when it comes to who gets what. At 205 there are a lot of guys that can lay claim to being next in line I think, and that problem is Zuffa’s and Zuffa’s alone.
I understand why Lyoto doesn’t get his shot, but he decimated a dude last night, he knows what he has to do to get noticed. I think saving a show will put him in the good graces.
February 1st, 2009 at 7:10 pm
Evans and Machida came up about the same time and faced the same calibre of opponents in the UFC.
Evans actually had a jump of nearly 2 years, over which time he recorded wins against Jardine, Whitehead, Imes, Hoger, Bonnar, Lambert, and Salmon in the UFC either in exhibition contests or full fledged pro bouts. When you look at it like that, Evans was, in a way, 10-0-1 in the UFC before getting a title shot.
Evans had the luck and skill to be more marketable and got the spotlight matchup with Chuck Liddell
Evans wasn’t supposed to win that fight. It wasn’t as if they wrapped up Liddell as a gift for the guy. It was intended as a speed bump till Liddell got his rematch at UFC 92. Rashad being more marketable is a straight up joke. The guy was known as a lay-and-pray fighter virtually his entire career.
The easy way to figure out if he belongs is to give him the fight and let him make his record like Rashad Evans did.
Why? What has he done to deserve it more than Rampage or Forrest? As far as I can tell, the answer is “nothing”.
February 1st, 2009 at 8:52 pm
To be fair, Rampage and Forrest “deserve” the title shot because they were given opportunities against elite fighters. The ease with which Lyoto handled Silva and everyone else he’s fought suggests that he deserves similar opportunities.
February 1st, 2009 at 9:37 pm
I express that he should be given exactly such an opportunity. Let him fight the winner of Rampage/Jardine or Forrest Griffin, then let’s return to discuss a title shot. All of those guys needed to beat a then elite fighter to get their crack at a title, why should Lyoto be different? Because Inoki had a hard-on for him?
February 2nd, 2009 at 9:26 am
Alan,
Wasn’t aware that you wrote this. But as you mentioned we are seeing eye to eye. As I mentioned in my piece, Machida needs to take Forrest Griffin out to earn a title shot IMO.
February 2nd, 2009 at 1:49 pm
I think the biggest problem is that Forrest and Rampage have turned down contracts to fight Machida in the past due to them not thinking they could make money off of a Machida fight. That and fear of being beaten in a ‘boring’ decision.
They have enough clout to be able to somewhat pick and choose, which sucks. Just like Chuck cherry-picking to the extreme and finally ending up fighting a very awful Shogun. Extremely transparent.
February 2nd, 2009 at 5:46 pm
Dave,
While I do think it’s fair for fighter to earn some say so in who they fight at certain points. I don’t think they can deny Machida any longer. The time has come for him to fight someone top 5. Forrest isn’t scheduled to fight anyone, and they need to sign that fight yesterday.
February 13th, 2009 at 2:14 am
Rampage was immediately put in the title scene. BIG WINZ~ in title fights is not a reason to exclude someone from getting a title shot. Obviously if they beat the champion and make defenses they’ll have some names on their record.
Forrest just got beat by Rashad. What’s the rush for a rematch?