Machida adapts to life as champ

Lyoto Machida started his MMA career six years ago surrounded by a lot of hype and under major pressure.

But making his debut in a heavily pushed match before nearly 50,000 fans at the Tokyo Dome is nothing like the pressure and the notoriety of having to defend the UFC light heavyweight championship in 2009.

In his home town of Belem, Brazil, almost nobody knew of the attempts to make him a handpicked star in Japan, where the unbeaten Machida fought five of his first six matches. But when he came home after beating Rashad Evans for the title on May 23 in Las Vegas, they threw a parade in his honor, and he became one of the most well-known residents of Brazil’s 10th largest city.

Suddenly, things that were once simple, like going out, or even going to the gym for training, changed. Everywhere the soft-spoken Machida went, people wanted his attention.

At times he’s had to move his training sessions to the family home, where his training is often overseen by his father, Shotokan karate master Yoshizo Machida.

"Since I won the title, I have a lot of new fans," Machida said through an interpreter as he approaches his first title defense, on Saturday night at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, against Mauricio "Shogun" Rua. "The fans sometimes want time. Even though a lot of things have changed, I won’t change."

Unlike most fighters who train a certain way based on the strengths of their opponent, Machida said there has been no difference in his training since he won the championship.

"The only change is the strategy," he said.

Machida has effectively used a hybrid style of karate, his extensive training in sumo and wrestling for balance, and jiu-jitsu for comfort on the ground.

"The difference between Machida karate versus Shotokan is that what most people have been used to and accustomed to watching is more sport karate," he said. "What we did is brought back some of the strikes that they’ve eliminated from sport karate, the knee strikes, the elbow strikes, having an effective distance and knowing the distance of your opponent."

Machida has been as dominant as any fighter in the game in recent years. He goes into Saturday’s fight with a 15-0 record, but even that doesn’t tell the complete story.

In his three-and-a-half years of U.S. based competition, he’s won 20 consecutive rounds, either finishing opponents or winning the round on every judges’ scorecard.

His last two wins, over Thiago Silva and Rashad Evans, were both devastating knockout stoppages where he completely shut out previously undefeated fighters in Evans and Thiago Silva. The two bouts seemed to have shed the image of Machida as a boring point fighter who dodged and darted his way to decisions in matches that weren’t spectator friendly.

"I think the biggest change has been that I still use the same strikes, a lot of the same moves, but I think what I’ve adapted into my training camp, and it started with Thiago Silva, was I was able to find a physical strength and conditioning and agility coach that’s been able to adapt a lot more speed and agility, and a lot more strength," he said. "So it’s given me a lot more power in my strikes."

The title win over Evans wasn’t a surprise, but the manner in which he dominated Evans, making the former champion look to be nowhere near his league before finishing him with a brutal second-round TKO, seemed to send shock waves through the UFC’s marquee weight division. Unlike with previous champs such as Evans and Forrest Griffin, there hasn’t been a long line of fighters going out of their way to publicly try and talk their way to the front of the line for the next shot.

With a win, Machida will tie Royce Gracie and Jon Fitch for the company's second-longest winning streak at eight (Anderson Silva holds the record with 10). His 17 consecutive rounds won in UFC competition (he previously had one match in the defunct World Fighting Alliance before his contract was purchased in the demise of that promotion) is also unprecedented. Georges St. Pierre, who has lost three rounds and two fights in his UFC career, is currently working on a UFC record streak of 20 consecutive rounds won. Machida could surprass him if Saturday’s five-round fight goes long enough.

The battle of two Brazilians in a main event in Los Angeles hasn’t been an easy sell. Tickets to UFC 104 haven’t exactly flown out the windows, as noted by the constant commercials during company broadcasts on Spike TV to follow Dana White’s Twitter to get free tickets to the show.

Machida seems to be similar to sometimes training partner Anderson Silva, the UFC middleweight champion. Silva didn’t establish himself as a genuine pay-per-view drawing card, despite records and accolades as one of the best pound-for-pound fighters in the world, until his fight with Griffin on August 8, nearly three years after winning the championship.

Machida, 31, has been attempting to increase his marketability, as he’s learned more English, and as he noted, some Japanese, since winning the title.

In all fighting sports, there is usually a lag period from when a top fighter is at his athletic peak, and when his drawing power is at his peak. The good news of that is that once established as a big draw, there is a lag on the other end, where you maintain your drawing power even after your peak, in most cases, as everyone from Oscar De La Hoya to Chuck Liddell have proven.

The selling of the fight is difficult because while Machida has taken big strides in popularity over he past year, Rua still hasn’t firmly established himself in U.S. competition. After a killer 2005, when Rua beat Quinton Jackson, Antonio Rogerio Nogueira, Alistair Overeem and Ricardo Arona in succession to win the Pride middleweight (205 lb.) Grand Prix tournament, Rua was generally considered the best in the world at his weight. But those matches were in Japan, and to 95 percent of more of the current UFC fan base, that was the equivalent of the noise redwoods make falling in an empty forest.

Machida has been listed at between a 4-to-1 and 5-to-1 favorite, and is still getting the lion's share of betting in his favor. But there is a question whether Rua (21-3) has regained his form. He’s come off two major knee operations, and himself noted a difficult early transition from the ring to a cage. His UFC career saw him lose to Griffin, beat Mark Coleman in a fight where he did not look impressive, and knock out Chuck Liddell, who had been on a losing streak.

"I’ve known him from 2004 or 2005 from the Pride days," said Machida. "I was always following him as a fighter because I thought one day we would be opponents."

Although Machida is not a big light heavyweight, as he noted a few days before fight time without any water weight cutting he was already at 205, he did fight at heavyweight the first three years of his career. If he continues to retain his title, Machida said he was very interested in some day facing Brock Lesnar, because he would consider that a major challenge.

"It’s up to the promoters," he said. "I’d like to challenge myself, but first I have to win a few more matches, but I’d like to challenge Lesnar hopefully in the future."