Oct-21-2009

Lyoto Machida – Let The Reign Begin

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By Thomas Gerbasi

The celebration didn’t take long. There was still work to be done, and newly crowned Lyoto Machida knew it. No longer was he the hunter, fighting his way up the ranks towards the man at the top. When he knocked out Rashad Evans in May to become the UFC light heavyweight champion, Machida became the hunted.

“You become the target, but that is what I train for,” he told UFC.com through translator Derek Kronig Lee. “I want to be the target; I like the challenge and train very hard to keep going.”

Not many people would welcome being the man all the fighters in the UFC’s talent-rich light heavyweight division – including this Saturday’s challenger, Mauricio ‘Shogun’ Rua – want to take down. But Machida is not like everybody else, and his ability to break from the norm, both in and out of the Octagon, has made him a bona fide UFC star.

“There are a lot of interviews, and a lot more fans,” said Machida of his transition from contender to champion. “But the place I train at limits people from coming in and I barely answer my cell phone anymore; I only answer numbers that I know are friends or family. Other than that I live life as I always have before.”

It wasn’t always like this for Machida in the UFC though. In fact, it looked like fans and the media would never come around to the Brazilian with the eerie calm, quiet demeanor, and unorthodox karate-based fighting style. But starting with his submission of Rameau Sokoudjou at UFC 79, fans started coming around. The bandwagon grew even larger when he defeated Tito Ortiz and Thiago Silva in back-to-back bouts, and when he halted Evans, you’d have to look pretty hard to find someone who wasn’t a Lyoto Machida fan.

“I am very happy about that,” he said. “The feedback from the fans is what shows me I am doing a good job. But I was not surprised by it; I knew that by improving in every fight, one day that would happen. I fight to please the fans, to defend my flag, my name and my family. The respect from the fans is their response to my good work.”

Now the hard part begins though, and that’s maintaining and growing his fanbase while keeping his unbeaten record intact and the title strapped around his waist.

“I believe it will always be difficult, but I don’t think about it, and I’m not worried,” said Machida. “I concentrate on the day to day, and I am not living off what I have accomplished; I live as if I had not accomplished it. In reality, having the belt does not give me any advantage over Shogun - we will both step into the fight under the same conditions, we will be equal, and this is one more fight. It is as if I was winning the title again; I have the same willpower and have trained as hard as I did before I won the belt. I feel that I am going into this fight to win the title, not just to defend it.”

The man across the Octagon from him on Saturday night, Rua, wants the title just as much, not only for his trophy case, but to show the world that the fighter who dominated PRIDE for so many years is still here and still able to dominate in the UFC like he did when he competed in Japan. That type of motivation is hard to stop, but Machida is pulling out all the stops to make sure he’s prepared to do it.

“I watch a lot of his fights so that he doesn’t surprise me, and I train based on his game,” said Machida. “I always saw Shogun as an aggressive and complete fighter, and he is well rounded, but I can find some flaws in his game.”

What fighters haven’t been able to do is find any flaws in Machida’s game. 15-0 over his six years in the pro game, Machida has been dominant to the point where people are starting to wonder not when he’ll get beaten, but if. He hasn’t been fighting cupcakes either, as you can add the names BJ Penn, Rich Franklin, Kazuhiro Nakamura, Stephan Bonnar, and Vernon White to his aforementioned victims. And he knew fairly early on that his style was going to be quite the puzzle for his opponents to figure out.

“I always trained with Vale Tudo guys that trained Jiu Jitsu, Judo and Boxing, and I always felt that if I adapted my style it would be efficient also, all I needed was the opportunity,” he said.

He has taken advantage of every opportunity thus far, and while a glossy unbeaten record compiled against the best in the world could be reason to start believing your own press clippings and lose focus, Machida has his family, especially his father Yoshizo and brothers Chinzo and Take to keep him focused and grounded.

“I have always looked up to my father,” said Machida. “I always admired the Gracie family for all they have done, but my father has always been my idol. He is the one who taught me the techniques, the doctrine, the philosophy. My father didn’t give me the fish, he taught me how to catch it.”

And in the future, Machida hopes to do the same thing in the United States for those wishing to learn his family’s style of karate. The 31-year old from Belem has also been making great strides in learning English, just another step towards true superstardom here for ‘The Dragon.’

“I have been studying any way that I can,” he said. “I have been listening to a lot of American music, watching movies in English and even watching cartoons in English with my son to become used to hearing it more. I believe it’s the best way to give back to my fans, to be able to meet them and talk to them, to show them my philosophy in life, my doctrine and my art. I think I can also learn a lot from the fans.”

It’s that desire to keep learning and keep striving for something new – in the gym, in the Octagon, and in everyday life - that separates Machida from a lot of his peers. Some win a world title and stagnate, seeing the belt as the end of the journey. And that’s fine if that was your final goal. But for Machida, winning the UFC title was only step one. There are still challenges out there for him, still goals he wants to achieve. And only when he’s accomplished everything he set out to do will he be satisfied. Yet knowing Machida, there will always be some new mountain for him to climb.

“What motivates me are the other objectives in my life,” he said. “The title has only given my career a start, and I still have to fight a lot of people. I represent a community, a millennial art, my family, and I want to keep on representing that. This is my moment, and I want to show my techniques and my values to the world. I want to keep my name in history, I want to break records and defy challenges, because if there are no more challenges left, I would rather stop fighting.”