Latest Lyoto Machida Stories

Georges St. Pierre remains the best fighter in all of mixed martial arts, regardless of weight class.

There are arguments, to be sure, for other fighters, namely middleweight champ Anderson Silva or featherweight champ Jose Aldo, getting the No. 1 spot. Most of those arguments center around the fact that Silva and Aldo are finishers, while St. Pierre tends to win decisions.

I'm sympathetic to those arguments, but what St. Pierre does in his decision victories is amazing: In his four decisions as the UFC welterweight champion, the 12 judges have turned in scorecards of 50-45, 50-45, 50-45, 50-43, 50-44, 50-45, 50-44, 50-45, 50-45, 50-44, 50-44 and 50-43. It doesn't get more dominant than that.

So St. Pierre remains on top. Find out the rest of the Top 10 below.

When you're trying to rank MMA fighters, it's easy to say you'll just rank them based on who they've beaten and who they've lost to inside the cage. It's a lot harder to actually create the rankings when you realize that it's mathematically impossible to rank every fighter ahead of the guys he's beaten and behind the guys who have beaten him.

That's the challenge of picking the No. 2 light heavyweight in the world right now. UFC light heavyweight champion Shogun Rua is No. 1, but there are three candidates for No. 2: Rampage Jackson, Lyoto Machida and Rashad Evans. And there's simply no way to rank those three without putting one of them behind someone he's beaten, and another one ahead of a man who has beaten him. Machida beat Evans, Evans beat Rampage, and Rampage beat Machida. Any way you slice it, someone has to get ranked ahead of someone who beat him in the cage.

So who's No. 2? I make my choice below.

There were already some who questioned the outcome of the UFC 123 matchup between Quinton "Rampage" Jackson and Lyoto Machida in the seconds after the official decision was read in Jackson's favor. Jackson opened the door for controversy even further when he admitted Machida "whipped" him in his post-fight comments (which by the way, he later recanted).

Machida seemed to take the decision without much protest, but he and his manager Ed Soares clearly believe that at least two of the judges erred in scoring it a split decision for Jackson.

"Lyoto thinks he won," Soares said on Monday's edition of The MMA Hour. "After the fight, he didn't have any doubt. He was convinced he won the fight. It was a big shocker to him, too."

If nothing else, you have to respect "Rampage" Jackson's honesty at UFC 123. He thought he took something resembling a butt-whoopin' from Lyoto Machida, at least in the final round, and he had no problem saying so.

That's refreshing, I have to admit. The suggestion that the two should have an immediate rematch? That just makes my head hurt.

The fight was interesting, in a way, though not exactly thrilling. Seeing them do it again wouldn't help pay-per-view sales or the crowded light heavyweight division, which is probably why UFC president Dana White mercifully intervened with other ideas. It just goes to show that sometimes it's a good thing to have an opinionated guy at the top with veto power and the will to use it. Sometimes.

Now on to the winners, losers, and everything else in between after UFC 123.

AUBURN HILLS, Mich. -- This isn't the type of fight that a guy named "Rampage" is supposed to win. Not a guy who's a part-time fighter, part-time movie star. Lyoto Machida is too controlled, too dedicated, too accurate to beat wild fighters. He waits, he makes you commit, and then he picks you apart. And Quinton "Rampage" Jackson is known for being wild.

Adding to the expected trouble, the Hollywood side of Jackson virtually promised fans a show, saying he planned to revert to the action-packed Rampage of old from his PRIDE days in Japan. He painted himself into a corner by railing against boring fighters and walked out to the cage to the old PRIDE theme song to remind himself of his vow until the last possible second.

The wild Rampage came back at UFC 123, but it was a refined wildness, controlled and in control.

Jackson's split-decision victory over Machida was not the crushing knockout he hoped for, and it couldn't steal the spotlight back over BJ Penn's 21-second knockout win, but in a sense it was something better: it was a performance long on maturity.

AUBURN HILLS, Mich. – UFC president Dana White believes that BJ Penn is such a proud man that if he had lost at UFC 123, a defeat that would have marked three straight losses, he would have retired.

It's safe to say Penn isn't calling it quits anytime soon.

Instead, the Hawaiian mixed martial arts legend provided a rejuvenating jolt to his already-storied career, knocking out former two-time welterweight champion Matt Hughes in just 21 seconds before 16,404 fans at The Palace of Auburn Hills.

"I honestly don't want to sit here and beat my chest over beating Matt," Penn told MMA Fighting after capturing the rubber match of the trilogy. "He's just another guy like me who's been around the sport a long time. I'm very fortunate things went the way they did tonight. Besides that, I don't want to harp on anything else."

In an exciting battle of former light heavyweight champions that ended up with a shocking split decision, Quinton "Rampage" Jackson defeated Lyoto Machida in the main event at UFC 123.

I scored the fight for Machida 29-28 and was sure Machida would win the decision, and I was stunned that two judges gave the fight to Rampage, 29-28. One judge gave it to Machida, 29-28.

AUBURN HILLS, Mich. -- This is the UFC 123 live blog for "Rampage" Jackson vs. Lyoto Machida, the main event of tonight's pay-per-view at the Palace of Auburn Hills.

Jackson vs. Machida is a headliner featuring two former champions coming off a loss. Jackson (30-8) lost Rashad Evans at UFC 114 in May. Machida (16-1) was knocked out the same month at UFC 113 by Mauricio "Shogun" Rua.

The live blog is below.

In at least one way, UFC 123 is already a disappointment. To me, anyway.

I would have thought that when you put Lyoto Machida – a fighter known for drinking his own urine – together with "Rampage" Jackson – a fighter known for his played out bad breath jokes – we would have had comedy gold by now. I would have thought the combination of necessity and opportunity would help break some new ground in the field of bad breath jokes. Sort of like the polio vaccine, only much, much less helpful to society.

No such luck so far. Guess that means we'll have to put our hopes in the fights themselves to entertain us. Let's start with a look at how oddsmakers think Saturday night's event will play out, along with some suggestions on where they might be wrong.

Lyoto Machida (-280) vs. Quinton "Rampage" Jackson (+220)

DETROIT -- Rampage Jackson has repeatedly stated his belief that he is a fighter, and Lyoto Machida is a mixed martial artist, and that there is a significant difference. The former has a willingness to take risks and endanger himself in an attempt to finish the fight; the latter is more prone to take the safe route to victory.

But Jackson said there's a price to pay for what he belives is Machida's reluctance to engage: he doesn't know how to take a hit. Jackson said it's a fact that became obvious to him while watching Machida's most recent fights.

"I watched that fight with Shogun," he said. "No disrespect to Machida, but he was punching at the same time. They punched at the same time, and me being a fighter, I could tell that that wasn't a really strong punch that dropped him. It comes with a price, not getting hit. So that tells me that if he's not getting hit in fights, he damn sure ain't getting hit in sparring.

DETROIT -- Lance Gibson has officially been with Quinton "Rampage" Jackson as a striking coach through two training camps, but he's known the former UFC light-heavyweight champion much longer. The two first met almost a decade ago, at a Big Bear camp for Tito Ortiz.

At the time, Jackson was in his early PRIDE days, while Gibson was preparing for a Shooto fight in Japan. The two reconnected to help Jackson prepare for his recent grudge match with Rashad Evans, and Gibson has played an even bigger role in preparing Jackson for his fight with Lyoto Machida at UFC 123. He feels the second time around will bear fruit in the octagon.

"The difference between last camp and this one is apples and oranges," Gibson told MMA Fighting. "His mentality, everything is superb. He's having more fun, you notice he's smiling more. He's enjoying himself. He trained really hard for this fight and he's excited to show it."

DETROIT -- There is a saying that some people use in the MMA world that goes like this: If you've never lost, you're not fighting the right people. For a time, Lyoto Machida seemed to turn that saying on its ear. He had fought BJ Penn and Tito Ortiz, Rashad Evans and Mauricio "Shogun" Rua, and yet a zero still followed the dash on his record.

After he captured the UFC light-heavyweight belt, more than a few declared it the "Lyoto Machida era," sure that he would become a dominant champion with a lengthy reign. But it wasn't long before the rematch with Rua proved what we already knew: that if you fight long enough, you will lose. You will have an off-day or someone will simply be better than you on one night.

But what happens next? What we've also learned in MMA is that how you rebound from losing is what ultimately defines you. Some guys fall apart, some are filled with self-doubt, and others simply re-double their efforts to ensure they will give themselves every chance to win in the future. At UFC 123, against Quinton "Rampage" Jackson, Machida will take that crucial step of stepping into a cage after rebuilding broken confidence.