This is an interesting video. ESPN talks to Lyoto Machida’s father Shinzo and asks if Lyoto should retire. Shinzo says that Lyoto should retire, that he has spoken with the rest of his family about his opinion but has yet to raise the issue with Lyoto.
I think part of the reason Yoshizo wants him to retire is that Lyoto is Yoshizo’s son. It must be hard watching your son getting beaten up by a fighter like Shogun Rua. The interesting part for me, however, was at the end, when Yoshizo talks about spirit, and how physical injuries heal quick while injuries to the spirit can take years to recover. This was exactly why I was calling for Machida to fight someone very easy in his next outing. (This, of course, is pretty hard to find. That 205 division is stacked with talent.)
I think what great parents do for their children is to build up their spirit. A person with a strong spirit can always find a way to get knowledge or experience that he needs to succeed. A person with a weak spirit can only react.
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If Machida loses to Couture, he should retire. There’s no excuse. Couture is in his mid-forties and doesn’t even want to be fighting. Anything less than a knockout will be terrible.
Here are my predictions:
1. GSP will beat the hell out of Jake Shields. He’s not a finisher, but he will be this weekend. Shields is a good middleweight; I only saw him fight once at welterweight, and he looked horrible. Shields will come in looking like an underweight cow, and GSP will capitalize.
2. Aldo will destroy Hominick. I’m not sure how. My guess is that he will KO him. It doesn’t matter since he’s superior in all ranges.
3. The Janitor will probably lose.
3. Lyoto will either beat Couture or lose by decision. It depends on whether he gets his mind set right. I think he’s still suffering from his Rua experience.
4. I’m thinking Henderson will beat Bocek, despite the fact that he’s never fought in the UFC. He’s got great kicks, and Bocek got knocked out by Edgar.
5. Nate Diaz will probably win.
Being a Lyoto fanboy, I think the UFC will be poorer without him, so I don’t want him to retire– unless, of course, he gets KO’d again.
I think he fought well against Rampage, and re-watching the Rua loss, I still consider that to have been a flash knockout (even though Rua is the toughest matchup for him so far, no matter how you slice it).
Couture hasn’t fought in a while, but that dude tends to give problems to people. I mean, he hung in there against f’in Lesnar, so I’m not ready to write him off yet, unless somehow his body has deteriorated in a major way in these past years (thinking of Cro-Cop). If somehow Couture wins by decision, like Rampage did, I don’t think Lyoto should retire. However, I’m not sure if Dana would cut him from the UFC just the same.
Hm…maybe Lyoto will learn something from the Rampage fight. He actually did more damage and had more offensive moves. Had it been a Pride bout, he probably would have won, but the fact that he didn’t go on the offensive until the third round may have cost him.
You’re totally right about Couture giving people problems. I thought he was actually winning that Lesnar fight until the very quick end. Assuming Lyoto is somewhat like his old self, it should be interesting to see how his sumo/judo works against Couture’s Greco Roman. Of course, Lyoto would rather throw from the perimeter, but I don’t think Couture is going to let him do that.
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