UFC 129 was a moment that Randy Couture had carefully prepared for. After several fights that featured opposition below his usual standards following his move down in weight in 2009, ‘The Natural’ was going to test himself against one of the best in the division. And he had handpicked the elite fighter he was to face, loudly campaigning to face Lyoto Machida after turning down several other fights.
When a veteran handpicks an opponent that means one thing; they’ve seen a weakness that they believe they can exploit. A classic example of this recently was Erik Morales demanding a fight against Marcos Maidana and using his ringmanship to make the Argentine slugger look foolish. Couture believed he could do the same against Machida. As former training partner and friend Dan Henderson told Inside Fights earlier this week “guys that smother Machida and don’t let him run around do well” and predicted that Couture would therefore “be able to put him up against the cage and control in the clinch”.
Unfortunately for Couture those weaknesses had already been exposed in Machida’s game, both against Shogun Rua at UFC 104 and against Quinton Jackson back at UFC 123. In both fights Machida ceded the advantage by allowing his opponent to push him up against the cage and hold him there. Against Couture, Machida made the adjustments to stop that happening again, not least moving quickly to explode off the cage the couple of times Couture tried to force him against it. His footwork also regained some of its hypnotic power it possessed against the likes of Rashad Evans as with constant movement he denied Couture the time or the space to cut off the ring. Instead Couture was forced to walk forward and onto Machida’s punches.
And those punches were coming far quicker and more frequently than had been the case in Machida’s previous outings, with The Dragon clearly learning from his controversial decision loss to Quinton Jackson that it was imperative to push the action and land point scoring blows. Couture’s chin held up surprisingly well considering he had been badly dropped by both Antonio Roderigo Nogueira and Brandon Vera in 2009. However when the end came there was nothing Couture could do about it. In a quite brilliant move, Lyoto Machida faked a left front kick before landing one with his right foot in a seamless move that was perhaps the equal of Black House teammate Anderson Silva’s finishing blow to Vitor Belfort at UFC 126. Couture went down in an instant and was quickly finished, but quite frankly so would any other fighter.
It was a dignified way for Randy Couture to end his career with the Hall of Fame five-time, two-weight champion being undone by a moment of sheer genius as opposed to any fading of his own skills. But as everybody in the Rogers Center showed their appreciation for one of the greatest fighters of all time the story of the sport he helped build turned a new page. Instead of the veteran’s last stand it was to be that other great archetypal fighting story; the passing of the torch. After a troubled eighteen months that had seen him look flat in his previous three fights and surrender the world light heavyweight title that most thought he was going to hold for some time, Lyoto Machida looked reborn at UFC 129. His striking was explosive, his footwork was slick and his approach positive. With a style that combines sumo inspired wrestling with karate based striking Machida’s unorthodox approach to MMA could well be what’s needed to truly test current world light heavyweight champion Jon Jones. Randy Couture hoped to finish his career by solving the Machida Puzzle but by defeating the legend and so restarting his career Lyoto Machida may yet earn the chance to unlock the secret to defeating Jon Jones.
