For Machida and Barao, the long climb back to the top is only beginning





MMA: UFC Fight Night-Machida vs Dollaway

Lyoto Machida


Just for fun I like to imagine Lyoto Machida and Renan Barao together in the same van, leaving the arena in Barueri, Brazil, early Sunday morning after UFC Fight Night 58.

I imagine them looking over at one another as they head off for their own champagne celebrations, exchanging polite, understated nods of congratulations and recognition, maybe flashing a thumbs up as they buckle their seat belts, then willing themselves to keep straight faces as they think, “That poor guy. At least I’ll get back to a title shot before he will.”

It’s not hard to see it from both sides. If you’re Machida (22-5 MMA, 14-5 UFC), you probably point to your own devastating first-round finish of C.B. Dollaway (15-6 MMA, 9-6 UFC) in the main event, as well as your “Fight of the Night” effort in your last title shot, and you reason that that’s got to be worth more than Barao’s third-round submission win over Mitch Gagnon (12-3 MMA, 4-2 UFC) in his first bout since the UFC 177 debacle.

If you’re Barao (33-2 MMA, 8-1 UFC), however, you could be forgiven for thinking that Machida has had his chances, thank you very much, and in two different weight classes. Weren’t you the one who was hailed as the pound-for-pound “monster” earlier this year? Didn’t they just show some clips from those days on TV, albeit kind of accidentally? Just because you lost one fight and then failed to make it to the scales for another, is that really reason enough to make your path back to the belt so much more difficult? After all, you just fought Gagnon. Haven’t you been punished enough?

You’ve got to admit, they both make good points (in this imaginary non-conversation that took place only in my head). So who’s right? Who gets his crack at UFC gold first, and why?

The answer might end up telling us a lot about the difficult situation that former champs and/or failed title contenders often find themselves in with the UFC. When you’re good enough to beat everybody but the champ, you sometimes end up in the unenviable position of the contender-killer. If no one wants to see you take another crack at the belt, and if the UFC doesn’t want to risk letting you knock off potential challengers for its current champion, where does that leave you?

It could be that, with UFC Fight Night 58, we just found out. It could be that it leaves you here, in Barueri, playing to the local crowd as the UFC takes a bit of a breather between pay-per-view events.

See, after Machida iced Dollaway in 62 seconds, it didn’t take long for fans and media to look up and wonder, wait, why was that a fight that just happened? It wasn’t particularly competitive, nor did oddsmakers expect it to be. And yet, when you think about where each man was in the division, it made sense.

Dollaway wasn’t a contender, so there was no harm (at least not to the title picture) if he went out and got a hole kicked in his ribs by Machida. And Machida was coming off a loss to the champ, so what better way to get us interested in seeing him back in the mix than by letting him show off against a guy on a two-fight winning streak?

And yeah, show off? That’s probably the best way to describe it. One kick from Machida, and Dollaway entered complete system shutdown mode. His vital organs sent the message to his brain, which re-routed it to his legs, and together they agreed to gradually sink to the floor just as Machida moved in to thump out a morse code message on his skull informing Dollaway of his unfortunate defeat.

Funny how few people were even discussing the prospect of a bout between Machida and fellow middleweight contender Luke Rockhold before this fight. Now it seems like a no-brainer.

For Barao, on the other hand, his chance to show off turned into an actual fight. Gagnon proved to be perfectly comfortable with being punched in the face and kneed in the gut, and while his takedowns weren’t at all effective in getting Barao to the mat, they did succeed in hitting the reset button on the beatdown from time to time. He was never really winning, but at least he took a long time to lose.

What does that mean for Barao? For starters, it means he probably won’t get his chance to shut up T.J. Dillashaw’s mouth any time soon. It also means he’ll likely have to beat at least one more tough opponent before reclaiming the position he lost when he couldn’t hold it together during his weight cut in August.

It might also mean that, even after a fairly dominant performance and a submission win in front of a sweltering crowd of his countrymen, he can’t help but buckle in for the ride back to the hotel wondering how it came to this.

He lost one fight. He had one failed weight cut. When he opened his eyes, he found himself alone in the UFC’s doghouse, a monster in exile, heading home from Barueri with Sunday morning setting in. It might not feel fair, but maybe it feels like a new beginning.

For complete coverage of UFC Fight Night 58, stay tuned to the UFC Events section of the site.

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