He controls the distance he retreats and constantly moves. However, if you hold your ground, or even retreat yourself, you force him to take an offensive style. Its something that we don't know about as far as his ability to fight out of. There are some things that are predictable in his style.. One is that if you chase him around, he circles left (to his right). If he gains enough of an oblique angle, he will throw left round house kicks to whatever opening seems to be most open, head or body. He seems to like to go for the body because it takes away the legs, which makes his movement that much more effective. He is a southpaw, so instead of trying to throw overhand rights, it is best to work with the jab and left hook as an orthodox fighter, in that he heavily relies on his own left cross. He is very fast on the ground and recovers very quickly to his feet. Trick is to allow him to make the mistakes.. It is hard to feint when you are the one retreating, and dealing with feints yourself.. Not sure how it would work, just saying, using his own game against him is the best place to base a game plan from.
For some reason I am picturing a fight where Machida starts circling away in one direction and the other fighter decides he will circle away in the opposite direction, the fights ends in a draw with no one making any contact. LOL
Takeout out the body with rather kicks or body punches,working up to his chin. Thiago landed a body shot at one point but his did not attempt it again.
His style was very boring up until tonight. It works for him but people want to see 2 guys go in there and bang. Machida is known for moving around backing up then cracking. Tonight he showed a different side and it was good. I think this guy could be untouchable for a long time. Look at his face I have never seen a mark on his face after a fight. I want to see him fight a top 5 205 pounder!
his stance is amazing, he more or less stands straight on so you can't really leg kick him, he is fast in and out, and keeps his distance always moving away from the strong hand. good takedowns he could beat anyone
Anderson Silva should fight the winner of Jackson-Jardine and Lyoto Machida shoulkd fight Rashad Evans.
Well said. How can a guy get critisied when his style is clearly working for him? Thiago Silva's style made Machida look exiting, but he was a bit more aggressive. There was only a few seconds of the round remaining and Mach went in for some GNP and took Silva out. :yep Here is an interesting article I read the other day about Machida. I posted it in a thread yesterday but some of you may have missed it. http://mma.fanhouse.com/2009/01/27/forced-admiration-for-lyoto-machida/
You don't seem to understand how much subtelty and nuance and technical skill is involved in fighting on the counter like Machida does; if youre going to say 'make him come forward' - fair enough, but how? He's been fighting like this for 20 years, you can't just turn up and decide to outdo him at his own game. You wouldn't say, the way to beat Mark Kerr is to outwrestle him, would you? It would work, but how do you do it if you're not a better wrestler than he is? In the same way you can't out counter strike Machida if he's a thousand times better at that particular style of fighting than you are.
We're not talking about Mark Kerr or wrestling. Take him out of his gameplan which means to make him come forward. Period. He wants to counterstrike - which is his wheelhouse. Charging him would only play to his strengths. Make the fight boring where he has to commit and counter him. Ummm. . . times infinity plus one - because we keep saying the same things to each other.
There are two names who are advancing MMA into a level of a refined sport called the Sweet Science. The names are Anderson Silva and Lyoto Machida.
