As former opponent of Jon Jones, Lyoto Machida shares thoughts on the Thiago Santos fight

Lyoto “The Dragon” Machida is one of the sport’s most unique legends. An undefeated champion during his run with the UFC light heavyweight title, he’s now back on his longest winning streak since holding said title.

After dropping the title to Mauricio “Shogun” Rua, Machida would wind up getting a crack at the title once more before dropping down to 185-pounds. And when he did so, it would come against the man to defeat the man who defeated him. That being the still champion, Jon Jones.

Unfortunately for the Brazilian karate specialist, Jones would get the better of him with a second-round submission finish.

A lot has happened in and out of the Octagon for Jones since the Machida win, which was only his second career title defense. In Jones’ most recent fight, he got a split decision victory over the always dangerous Brazilian, Thiago “Maretta” Santos.

The decision would wind up being one of the more controversial ones of the year. At the very least, it showed Jones isn’t unbeatable after all.

“So it was a very, very close that fight,” Machida told The Body Lock. “A couple rounds Thiago won and a couple rounds Jon Jones won but I believe that if the judges said Jones won, and I saw very many people saying that Thiago ‘Maretta’ beat Jon Jones, it’s very hard to say… was a very close fight. Hard to say [who won].

“I was very impressed with Thiago. He did a really good job and he evolved a lot.”

For Machida’s next bout, he’ll be taking on Gegard Mousasi in a rematch this Saturday night at Bellator 228. Attributing his recent success to going back to his older karate roots, the 41-year old doesn’t have any plans to retire any time soon.

Also at Bellator 228, the star-studded featherweight Grand Prix opening round will come to its conclusion.