Somebody should have warned Lyoto Machida that playing hardball with Dana White never ends well.
Now, either the UFC is teaching him a lesson for wanting “Anderson Silva Money” for stepping in on short notice to face Rashad Evans at UFC 133 or they want to save the Japanese-Brazilian fighter for its February 26 return to Japan. Either way, Lyoto, who only fought once in 2011 at UFC 129 in April, won’t even be making Strikeforce Challengers money the rest of the year. Lucky for him he has the Knockout of the Night bonus he got for retiring Randy Couture and knocking out his tooth.
Machida tweeted late last night that he likely won’t be fighting again until next year, but didn’t give a reason why.
You may recall that White prematurely announced last week that Machida would be taking on Phil Davis at UFC 140 in Toronto and then pulled a 180 on the news when he was informed that Davis was still recovering from knee surgery. I guess Dana’s still sore at us. Otherwise he might have considered one of our viable replacement opponents for “The Dragon” to keep him busy instead of putting him on the shelf.
