2008-06-30 05:43:16
No One Wants to Fight Lyoto Machida?
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Bloody Elbow (link below) out with an interesting article tonight, talking about Machida's future in the UFC and how potential opponents are turning down the opportunity to fight the undefeated Machida, one by one.
According to Dave Meltzer from the Wrestling Observer, the UFC is struggling to find opponents for the man called "The Dragon". Brandon Vera was apparently offered the opportunity to fight Machida and turned it down. Bloody Elbow goes on to mention that Quinton "Rampage" Jackson is not too excited at the prospects of possibly fighting Machida down the road. And now, in an article in the Sun newspaper in England, Forrest Griffin claims that he "wants nothing to do" with Machida, should he win the title from Jackson at UFC 86.
Why are people shying away from a fight with the undefeated Machida?
As Bloody Elbow says -
"The top guys have very little to gain by fighting him. If they lose a
boring fight, it's terrible for their reputation and drawing power, and
if they beat him, the win doesn't really do much besides boost their
credibility among hardcore MMA fans."
This is a high risk, low reward situation. It's not like fighting Chuck Liddell, where if you lose a slugfest (like Wanderlei Silva did in his first UFC fight), you still maintain the respect of MMA fans. Did Silva's reputation take a beating after the Liddell fight? Of course not. It was a great fight, one of the best of the year. He lost, but so what? Fans loved the fight, and fans loved the fact that Silva entertained them for three solid rounds.
On the other hand, if you win a slow and plodding fight against Machida, casual fans won't care about the fact that you just beat the undefeated "Dragon". They'll be pissed that they watched a subpar fight, and won't give you much credit for your victory. As Bloody Elbow mentions, you'll really only get props from the hard-core MMA fans. Casual fans won't care.
Therein lies the problem. It's a high-risk, low-reward situation, and I am not surprised that fighters are shying away from Machida. It's not because they are scared of him - like Griffin said, there are just 20 fighters that he would rather fight first. And I'm not surprised.
Source: Bloody Elbow
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