Prior to UFC on FOX 4, UFC President Dana White announced the most exciting winner of the co-main events (Lyoto Machida vs. Ryan Bader, and Shogun Rua vs. Brandon Vera) would earn a title shot vs. the winner of Dan Henderson vs. Jon Jones.
Shogun vs. Vera was thrilling, but Machida vs. Bader was thrillinger still, and Machida had been hounding White for a title fight, so The Dragon is next.
“Lyoto Machida looked the most impressive tonight,” White told FOX after the event. “He has this fire in him. He wants it. He wants his title back. Everything I see in his performance, the way he acts, shows me he wants this title shot.”
“(UFC light heavyweight champion Jones) still has to fight Dan Henderson, and Dan Henderson is nasty. He’s a legend killer. Jones has to get through him first, and whoever wins that fight will face Lyoto Machida.”
Machida, who many expect will end up facing Jones over Henderson, reports that Jones has a weak point. He’s just not certain what it is. What ever it is, Lyoto may have found it in his first fight against Jones. Although Machida went out to a guillotine in the second round at UFC 140, many feel he won the first round, and in so doing, wrote the blueprint to beat Jon Jones.
Jones is as heavy a favorite as he’s ever been vs. Henderson. Jones currently sits around the -650 mark to Henderson’s +450. By comparison Jones was as much as -600 against Vladimir Matyushenko two years ago and -550 against Jake O’Brien at UFC 100. Against Rashad Evans in April, Jones was about -450.
“Of course he has a weak point,” Machida said. “But it’s very hard to say because Jon is an elusive fighter. All the time, he changes his style. Sometimes he kicks. Sometimes he punches. He’s got good wrestling. Maybe I have to train more wrestling.”
“I’ve just kept training since I lost my last fight,” Machida said. “I tried to change some things in my training. I moved here to America to get a new start.”
