Poor Lyoto has to have the unenviable task of facilitating the final memory of Randy Couture's legendary fighting career, that being the old man waking up in the cage, staring at the lights in front of 55,000 maniacal Canadians. It's a tough job but somebody's got to do it, right?
Machida-San is being very humble and respectful towards the old guy, as he should be, talking about how honored he is to be Randy's last opponent. Now, with the niceties aside, the reality is that this is just a really bad fight for Captain America and horrible timing to boot. After Lyoto's last loss to Rampage, another in a long list of ridiculous decisions that have plagued the sport, he knows he has to eliminate the possibility of that happening again and finish the fight by either submission or knockout. I'm going with the latter. As Lyoto has stated, he is not only fighting Randy Couture, he is also fighting the judges. With the way judging has gone in Mixed Martial Arts, to leave the outcome in the judges hands is not in anyone's best interests, including the fans. Randy will be forced to deal with a raging Dragon who has a very large chip on his shoulder. And given the speed disparity, there's isn't all that much for the old dude to do to stop the onslaught that Machida-San will bring in the cage in Toronto.
The question is, why did Randy take this fight as his last fight in the first place? He claims he wanted it for a while now, but with every passing day on his aging body and with his diminishing speed, this fight becomes more and more impossible to win. There is also word that Lyoto's manager, Ed Soares, pushed for this fight. That's understandable because a win over Randy will go a long way as far as exposure to the more casual MMA fans. And stylistically, this fight is a no-brainer for Machida-San. His overwhelming speed and striking advantage will cause the old man to pull out what little is left of the hair on his balding dome. Again, that's after he comes to from the unconscious state that Lyoto will be forced to put him in.
Randy has had a very impressive career regardless of his rather pedestrian record of 19-10. Most impressive to me is how late an age he started fighting at and how long he has lasted. He started fighting at the age Lyoto is now, 18 fights into his career. The guy is almost a half century old and still going strong, well, relatively speaking. You know a fighter has overstayed his welcome when his son is also fighting as a pro and is 28 years old. Unfortunately for Randy, he is choosing to end his career fighting one of the best fighters on the planet. This is after he took two laughable fights against a very old, washed up Mark Coleman and another very old, very fat, horribly out of shape, inexperienced MMA virgin, James Toney. Fighting those 2 dudes and fighting Lyoto Machida is as different as nuns and pornstars. We're talking two completely opposite ends of the spectrum here. The old man deserves his props for taking such a tough fight as his last outing. At what age does dementia set in? Zuffa would have easily given him another softball match-up as his swan song fight, but Randy chose to go out with possibly the hardest fight of his career. Again, he deserves props and respect for that. If nothing else, Randy is a tough, hard-nosed competitor and proved that just by signing this fight contract.
Machida-San will be playing role of spoiler and assassin on Saturday night in front of 55,000 potentially drunk, loud Canadians and around a million more potentially drunk MMA fans sitting on their couches at home watching the PPV. He will have to spoil old man Couture's going away party and essentially kill his career as a fighter. It had to happen, the guy is 47 years old, and unfortunately, his time inside the cage will come to a violent end. Poor Lyoto has to be the nail in the coffin of a legend's storied career. It's been a nice run, Mr. Couture, you definitely put your stamp on the MMA game. Now go enjoy your much safer post-fighting life where you don't have to deal with fighting machines like the great Lyoto Machida.
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