Lyoto Machida, Ken Shamrock, and Me

Machida made his debut into the ufc in 2007, at ufc 67.
This would be the only fight of his NOT on the the main card. it only took a few more wins.
UFC 84 would be Machida's first huge fight under the lights, against a man that i hated
with all my heart

The first time I saw him fight, i felt a connection with him.
He was different, he looked like bruce lee, his base was karate, and
he was an undefeated fighter that i could be proud to root for.

when i was younger, I was a huge wwf, i loved the over the top
characters, the competition, and the scantily clad girls that filled my dreams
on a nightly basis.  but one thing always bothered me. where did some of my favorite
wrestlers dissapear to? They stopped showing up for months without any
mention of them being gone! one of those men was Ken Shamrock. eventually the wwf
turned into the wwe, i was getting older, and most of the characters i knew were gone. :/

A few years after that i was in the movie rental store when i saw
ken shamrock on the cover of something called ufc.  i read the back
and determined that it wasn't a movie, it was real no holds barred fighting,
and up until then, i thought that sort of thing was illegal everywhere but japan.
i remember hoping that shamrock wouldn't be killed if he lost LOL i know, i know.

I watched ufc for the very first time, and i was enthralled!! i was an instant
fan of those fighters on the card known as "ufc 40:vendetta". i found a new sport i knew i'd love forever...
but ken lost in the main event and i was pissed off. i though to myself "world most dangerous man, yea
righht" but shortly after that i became upset. i wanted to see him win, i heard he was a legend
of the sport, and he was someone i thought i knew in a sport i knew nothing about.  I went back
to the video store but there were no more ufc events with ken shamrock on them :( i watched the
other video's and became a big matt hughes fan.

after this short period i gave up on the ufc and mostly everything else i was into at
that time, so i could chase girls, and drink/smoke with my friends all day. that changed when i randomly
clicked onto the station showing the ultimate fighter, shamrock vs tito. i was back, and ready
to see ken beat that asshole with no respect once and for all!

..it didn't happen, i was VERY upset, and felt like it was unfair.  somethings seemed wrong
to me, and I heard that they would fight one more time, so my hope was re-ignited. i knew that
ken could win, i wanted him to finally win so badly that when he did lose, and dana said that
would be the last time shamrock would be in the octagon..i began to tear up. i promised to never
watch ufc ever again! i was done with it! wasn't about to watch it with these assholes
putting down shamrock.

 that didn't last very long.

a couple years after that event my best friend (since i was two years old)
was talking about mma a lot, and introduced me with two amazing fighters i knew nothing about.
anderson silva, and lyoto machida.  he had copies of every fight, and knew every fighter ect.
him and i hadn't talked for a couple years due to a falling out we had, and i wasn't so sure we had that much
in common. so right then and there i decided that i was going to get into mma hardcore so that we could
have something in common to talk about again. i went home that night and wikied and googled everything
i could about the ufc. but something happened$$$ that magic had returned! (weeeee) I was in love with the sport
altogether now, and i had new people to root for that wouldn't let me down every single time they fought.

 lyoto was my friends favorite fighter, and quickly became MY favorite fighter (lol) on that first night we hung out in years.

as stated above we watched lyoto, and a. silva fights.  something else great happened that night.  he showed me
lyoto vs. Tito!  it's possible that seeing tito lose also helped me to let go of the pain i felt when he
continuously beat down the fighter that got me into the ufc;  the legend that he showed no respect to; the wwf fighter i have always wished to see on ppv. lyoto put titi in his place that night, and even though the event took place a few months prior, it was, and still is my favorite sports moment

we cheered for lyoto all the way through his undefeated run and it was a great one. he went through
another tough undefeated fighter in thiago silva, plus the way he knocked out rashad is an unforgetable moment for me and you. but some things have happened lately that just suck.  he lost that aura he had when he was undefeated, that mayweather like feeling of invincibility was gone.  after that fight he took way too long to get started against rampage, then lost the damn fight because of this. those things sucked, but what irked me most was when he fought an over the hill couture.  i never thought that lyoto would accept an unfair fight like that.  after that fight he refused to fight rashad on short notice because the price wasn't right? WTF is that?  that's not something my favorite fighter would do? what is going on here!?

it drives me nuts that people count couture as a victory, and see machida being in line for a title shot. if you're going to tell me he won his last fight, i'm going to tell you he lost his last 3 fights, just for fighting a legend that he's
clearly better than at this point. i want to see him fight the best, that's why i was so excited when i heard he'd get to fight rashad again.  SIGH..i hope he gets his ish together.

to this day i still look up ufc information on a daily, and we are still best of friends that talk about mma
constantly.  he's having an engagement party this saturday :)