Lyoto Machida fought the best of the best during his legendary MMA career.
The former UFC light heavyweight champion fought Jon Jones, Luke Rockhold, Dan Henderson, Randy Couture, and many more MMA icons during his 38-fight run in the sport.
Lyoto Machida’s competition level was so high that there was rarely a chance to underestimate anyone.
‘The Dragon’ recently admitted that the one time he overlooked an opponent, he was made to pay for it.
Lyoto Machida admits he underestimated Yoel Romero
In 2015, Yoel Romero was a relative newcomer to the UFC with a 10-1 MMA record.
The muscle-bound Cuban wrestler was coming off a controversial TKO win over Tim Kennedy at UFC 178 in September 2014.
Romero was saved by the bell at the end of round two before his corner took forever to get out of the cage between rounds, leaving their fighter sitting on his stool to recover for close to an extra minute.
58 seconds into the final frame, Romero stopped Kennedy with a flurry of strikes to record an unconvincing win that seemingly convinced Machida he could beat him without a full camp.
“I fought Yoel Romero when he was right at the beginning in the UFC,” Machida said on the JAXXON podcast.
“He was tough! But when I saw his technique, I thought I could deal with it.
“I had a surgery and everything, and then I had just five weeks for the fight. I should not have accepted the fight on short notice. You don’t have a great camp in five weeks. You have to have at least eight weeks to be calm and prepare everything.
“I kind of underestimated Yoel, and it wasn’t good because he was tough.”
On fight night, Romero hammered Machida with five nasty elbows to put the karate specialist to sleep and score a third-round knockout win.
Where are they now?
Lyoto Machida called time on his MMA career following a KO defeat to Fabian Edwards at Bellator 281 in February 2022.
The loss made it four in a row for the Brazilian knockout artist, who had never experienced such a streak.
Yoel Romero is a year older than him at 48, but he continues to compete and win in MMA.
In February 2024. ‘Soldier of God’ outpointed Thiago Santos to improve his post-UFC record to 3-2.
Since then, he’s transitioned to ‘Dirty Boxing’ and scored two KO wins fighting for the promotion co-owned by Jon Jones.
It’s currently unclear when or where Romero will fight next, but fans certainly haven’t seen the last of him.