After a cocontroversial loss to Phil Davis, Lyoto Machida has decided upon fights that he wanted to take. It had been earlier reported that UFC matchmaker, Joe Silva, had wanted to put on a fight between Lyoto Machida and Nick Diaz. After this Saturday's Fox Sports 1 event, Dana White killed the noise on that one stating that that fight will not be happening. Machida has come out stating that he would like fights with Chael Sonnen as well as Vitor Belfort.
Though I find that both of these fights would be amazing for fight fans I am most interested in seeing Lyoto facing the newly reinvigorated Chael Sonnen.
I think that Chael Sonnen prevents a high pressure fight game that proved to be deadly to most of his opponents including Machida's teammate and former UFC Middleweight Champion, Anderson Silva, in their first fight. I think that Chael will not give Machida the opportunity to do his ususal dancing around the cage. I see a potential Machida/Sonnen fight would look much like Silva/Sonnen I with the exception of Machida not having an injury going into his fight so it will be more competitive. Dont get me wrong I still think that Machida could win this fight if he can pressure Sonnen before Sonnen can pressure him (see UFC 159 Jones vs. Sonnen.) The only thing that could prevent this , atch from happening would be Sonnen's desire to square off with Wanderlei Silva.
In the case of Belfort vs. Machida I think that it would be a fight that Machida could win a little easier than fighting Sonnen. It would be a great fight to promote in Brazil. Belfort is on a tear in the Middleweight division and feels that he is entitled to a title fight and is turning down all non title dights at middleweight. Perhaps the UFC can put together a catchweight fight at 195 so then it could happen without Belfort being worried about his stature in the 185 lb category.
