Do these guys have a choice? Unless they have an injury, they should really not be deciding who they should fight or not. I can appreciate Machida’s elusive style. He doesn’t run away from you, he just picks and chooses his spots and they look very impressive. But at the same time his style frustrating, at times, to watch. UFC officials might have to ask this dude to open his game up some more, because if he becomes champion it’s going to be hard to sell his fights. If he does become champ, they are going to have to have an additional title fight for a main event, just so the pay-per-view won’t suffer. They did that when Sean Sherk was the champ.

While I think Machida could be more aggressive at times, how do you ask a guy, whose style has been extremely successful, to change what he’s doing for the sake of entertainment value? Isn’t that like asking an undefeated, running oriented football team to throw the ball more, because they’re boring to watch? Keeping viewers entertained is obviously important. I honestly don’t know where you draw the line between sport and pure entertainment. Machida’s not doing anything illegal unless they start deducting points for not engaging. In my opinion, he’s not running. He just employs a less aggressive strategy than typical fighters. I also don’t know how other fighters can refuse to fight him. Machida’s like a marketing black hole.

They do, of course, have a choice. We saw it with Tito ducking Chuck years ago. Both fighters need to sign a contract. It’s usually a non-issue because everyone is willing to fight everyone, but there’s a reason it took a significant raise to get Dan to move to 185 and fight Anderson Silva. They can’t just force guys to take fights.

Right, certain fighters are in a better position than others to turn down fights. Liddell, Forrest, Wanderlei Silva, and Quinton Jackson are all in that good position. ANyone else pretty much has to take whatever fight. My guess is that Wand would do it either way cause it seems like he just doesn’t give a shit.

If this scenario continues to play out in this manner, you may have Machida cleaning out the LHW division except for the top 5 or so big name guys who won’t fight him. That’s something to look forward to. I guess he’ll be the guy who’s put in to embarrass the fighters that Dana is about to cut loose. I can see from a marketing perspective why you would much rather Rampage be the champion than Machida, but what are you going to do with the dude?

You don’t see Machida shying away from anybody. God forbid he has a style that is largely outside of the box from what we see in the UFC. I think presenting him to mainstream fans is a method of increasing awareness about different martial arts that should and do make up “mixed martial arts.” We shouldn’t limit fight combinations because fighters feel wary of matching up against such a formidable style.

It’s not really us that are limiting them, its fighters that don’t want to fight him. One way around it would be offering to pay them even more to take the fight, but it’s a hard tactic to justify when Machida is yet to draw anything.

If Machida was a colorful character, like Tito Ortiz, maybe he would appeal to the mainstream audience. I mean did anybody think Tito Ortiz was an exciting fighter?

I think you have to agree with the huddled masses on this one, Machida’s style is boring to even the casual eye. Having him as a champ, fighting the style he is currently sporting, would destroy the fanbase the UFC has grown for the LHW. How do you deal with this problem, I haven’t got a clue? You can’t let him continue the way he’s going and unless you start giving out yellow cards…...good luck to Dana and LZ3 (is that the right one), they need it. Does anyone else have any ideas about it?

With all these football comparison’s, Machida’s style kind of reminds me of Peyton Manning. It’s second and 1, the Colts are lined up to run the ball. Defense is stacked to stop the run. Peyton Manning sees it, calls a different play, at the line of scrimmage, which is a pass play.

When Joey Porter played Steelers, he complained a week before the divisional series against Colts, that the Colts don’t like to run a play when they call it in the huddle. They like to catch you off guard and trick you. Porter was always frustrated with that and would rather just call a play and run it at them. That is how opponents, who face Machida, feel when they fight him. They would rather him fight you, than just try and them off guard.

Why do Machida fans insist the only alternative to his style is to watch 2 drunks in a bar swing beer bottles at each other?

I’m no Machida hater, but the debate gets ridiculous. People like to see fighters engage each other, they want constant action.

I know this is somewhat unrelated but there seems to be a new Machida thread on Sherdog every hour. It could be some sort of implicit collective troll phenomenon but even if a third of this controversy is genuine I think it could be indicative of growing understanding of Lyoto’s style. If enough fans learn to appreciate or at least tolerate it, we could see more guys wanting to fight Machida.

I think Lyot Machida will become more popular due to his unorthodox style. I saw the Tito Ortiz match with a group of friends. Most who had never seen an MMA fight before. When the show was over – everyone wanted to know more about Machida. The Karate card helped.