A few fortunate circumstances have led to Lyoto (The Dragon) Machida finally getting his shot at the UFC light-heavyweight title.
I say fortunate because Machida truly deserves this opportunity. In fact, he should have gotten it a long time ago.
A little while ago I wrote a blog about how both Machida and Rashad Evans (who was not champion at the time) were "boring" fighters. I wasn't taking anything away from their abilities, I just felt that their excellent, effective fighting strategies were not exactly the most crowd-pleasing.
Well, that changed for Machida with one solid knockout punch of the previously undefeated Thiago Silva. And after knocking out Chuck Liddell with one punch and Forrest Griffin with a few, Evans has got himself a belt.
And now the two fighters, each undefeated in 14 career bouts -- Evans' only non-win was a draw against Tito Ortiz -- will meet with a title on the line. And I'm really looking forward to it.
Sorry, Rampage, there will be no more "black-on-black crime." At least not just yet.
That's because of a jaw injury suffered by the former champion Quinton (Rampage) Jackson during his fight with Keith (The Dean of Mean) Jardine. If it weren't for that injury he would be getting a chance to regain the belt before Machida even got his first chance.
Why? Because of the UFC's tendency to let marketing determine who gets title shots and not the fighters themselves.
I understand it's a business -- with entertainment at its crux -- and you want to give the fans fights they want to see. This is why a charismatic character and explosive fighter like Rampage is in the spotlight more so than a non-English-speaking tactical fighter like Machida. Or why a Japanese, lay-and-pray-style fighter like Yushin Okami has to wait endlessly for an opportunity for a shot at the middleweight belt while others -- definitely deserving yet not-as-accomplished guys like Patrick Cote and Thales Leites -- go first.
But MMA is also a sport, and it’s becoming more mainstream by the week. So the UFC, the sport's largest "league," if you will, should look like one, especially if it wants to gain widespread acceptance.
I'm not suggesting it make any concessions or change what has made it the most successful mixed-martial-arts promotion in the world, still going strong after 15 years. But I think it's time to adapt -- look more like a sports league and less like the WWE.
Take a lesson from what has been plaguing the BCS. At the end of the college football season, a champion is determined by a selection process, and there's always at least one team -- and its associated fans -- who feel slighted each year. In fact, it's gotten to the point where organizers are seriously considering some kind of system where teams earn a shot at the championship by merit, not by popularity.
Sound familiar?
I'll never understand why Rampage was promised the title shot had he beat Jardine, but Jardine wasn't had he won. (I understand Jardine's reasons for himself not wanting to fight his friend Evans, but not the UFC's reasons.) Sure, Jardine is another guy without the "star power." But he's a tough fighter and even though he's lost a couple quick ones in the past two years, if he's good enough to earn Rampage a title shot, he should be good enough to earn himself one.
One of the suggestion for the BCS is a system called "plus-one" where the top four teams play off and produce a final between two winners. Then there would be less debating on who "deserves" a shot at the championship.
The UFC needs to employ its own "plus-one" format. They did it with the Couture/Lesnar/Mir/Nogueira mini-tournament (although they could have done without the contradictory interim title). I'd like to see them do it more.
