Lyoto Machida

Lyoto Machida Interview

 

MMABay sat down with the man who is set to challenge for the UFC light heavyweight title this coming weekend at UFC 98, undefeated Brazilian karate expert, Lyoto “The Dragon” Machida. We asked him about his deep routed origins in martial arts and about what is in store for his opponent on Saturday in Las Vegas, Rashad Evans.

In the interview we asked him how he became so involved in karate at an early age?

“I started training karate when I was three or four years old. I would watch my father training, he was a grand master in Shotokan karate and we lived on top of the gym so it was only natural that I would hang around the dojos. Every once in a while I would go in and play around just for fun.”

When was it you realised that you karate skills could be used to great effect in the sport of mixed martial arts?

“I would train with a lot of Vale Tudo guys in Brazil, so that’s when I really started to appreciate my love for karate and that I could use Karate in Vale Tudo. Then I opened my eyes to mixed martial arts (MMA) when I was around thirteen or fourteen, watching the first UFC’s and seeing that it was a competition that involved a lot of different disciplines. I thought that this is want I want for myself and I was already training karate, sumo and judo so I started training jiu-jitsu to prepare myself for those situations and I knew that I wanted to be an international fighter.

“MMA was very new when I started watching it but it was always very important to me and my family that our karate had a lot of effectiveness, so when we started watching MMA we started noticing we could be effective and I started training with a lot of jiu-jitsu guys and a lot of Muay Thai guys and started seeing that I could adapt my karate to combat their styles.”

On the subject of his opponent at UFC 98 this weekend, Rashad Evans, Machida commented:

“I have been watching a lot of Rashad’s fight footage and studying very hard. I have a lot of tricks up my sleeve that people haven’t seen yet, a lot of striking, a lot of different things that will make my opponent strike at me. So even though Rashad is a counter striker as well, I still think it’s going to be a great fight because Rashad is the champion and Rashad does like to go at it and engage at times. In the end, it’s going to be a great fight.”

“Every time I go into a fight I hear my opponent say they are going to do this and going to do that to counter me, but when that cage door closes, then we’ll see what’s going to happen. People can say whatever they want to say but we will have to wait until that moment.”

 

To listen to the interview in full, CLICK HERE!!!