Tim Kennedy wants 'loser leaves town' match against Lyoto Machida
UFC fighter Lyoto Machida was once a man with no perceivable weakness. He was the harbinger of a new era of fighting when, as an elusive counter-punching phenom, he won the UFC light heavyweight championship over Rashad Evans at UFC 98 with a spectacular knockout. At the time, he was 15-0 and was the closest thing to ‘unsolvable’ that the sport had ever seen.
Machida is now confusing for an entirely different reason. On Saturday, at UFC on FOX, the former light heavyweight champion lost the sixth fight of his career – a brutal second-round stoppage at the hands of middleweight prospect Luke Rockhold. It was a disheartening blow to Machida and his fans, as Rockhold dominated him in every facet of the fight, in the process making the former champ seem aged and – to put it bluntly – out of place.
If Machida’s perceived lack of weakness kept challengers from signing on the dotted line in years' past, well, his recent in-ring troubles have certainly brought out those looking to climb the divisional ladder.
UFC middleweight Tim Kennedy on Wednesday told UFC Tonight’s Ariel Helwani that he'd love the next shot at the Brazilian. And not only that: he wants to up the stakes and make the fight a "loser leaves town" match – a wrestling term where the loser has to leave the current promotion.
He doesn't want to fight Machida yet, though.
Kennedy, the former United States Army Ranger, is headed to South America to film a reality television show of sorts. Kennedy told Helwani that for the next two months he would be hunting down ‘war criminals’ for an unnamed program. When he returns, he would like the match with Machida.
The two middleweights were scheduled to meet in Nov. 2013 at UFC Fight for the Troops. However, the fight was scrapped and Kennedy met Rafael Natal instead – winning KO of the Night honors in the process.
Most recently, Kennedy is coming off a controversial loss to Yoel Romero at UFC 178. The defeat came after Kennedy had Romero badly hurt at the end of the second round. In between rounds, Romero was given well over the allotted one-minute recovery period (estimates ranged from 25-35 seconds extra), and he came back to stop Kennedy in the third round.
Both Kennedy and Machida have plenty to prove, and a fight between them would allow one to erase the sour taste left after their last bout. They were both once the top tier of the middleweight division and asking for a loser leaves town match may be a little too excessive. However, in an age of manufactured quotes and “I’ll fight whomever the UFC puts in front of me” rhetoric, the idea of any fighter taking their careers into their own hands and asking for a fight with those kind of stakes is fun (even if it won't ever happen under those terms).
Now who's going to one-up Kennedy and ask UFC president Dana White for a ladder match?
