I am no MMA coach, so I am loathe to criticize Greg Jackson for the strategy he designed for Rashad Evans. But I can’t shake the idea that Rashad came into this fight with a terrible strategy. I heard the idea of making Machida strike first in a number of places, but dismissed it out of hand. Little did I know it would be Rashad’s strategy at UFC 98.
People saw Thiago Silva get picked apart and concluded that you can’t move forward against Lyoto Machida. They took the wrong lesson from the fight. It’s worth first considering that Thiago moved forward with his hands down in reckless fashion. Nobody should conclude that because he lost via reckless pursuit, any pursuit at all is futile.
Thiago Silva was knocked down by Antonio Mendes, and had a very ugly slugfest with Drwal. Nobody ever confused him for an elite striker. That Drwal fight tells the true story of Silva’s standing game, he is willing to be hit in the head over and over just to get his shots in, and that strategy had no chance against Machida.
I maintain that beating Machida will take a constant and measured pursuit. His opponent will have to continually move forward, try to cut off the cage, and smother him. Will it be easy? Hell no! Machida is amazing at moving around the cage, and nobody has been successful with this strategy yet. But sitting on the outside and allowing Machida to dictate the exchanges is a recipe for disaster.
The other bothersome thing to me was Rashad’s head hunting. Machida’s leaning stance combined with his reaction time and footwork makes it nearly impossible to hit him in the face from the outside. His leaning stance necessarily leaves an opening to the body, guys need to circle to their right (Machida’s left) and attack his body.
Whenever people discuss fighting Fedor, they try to think of the one thing they can beat him. They look for the silver bullet. People are doing it with Machida too, but he’s too good all-around. There is no silver bullet. Whoever beats him will need an excellent chin, good defense, patience, cardio, good wrestling, good balance, good clinch skills, and the ability to do significant damage on the inside. Oh, and one more thing…they’ll need to be very lucky too.