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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
Former UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Lyoto Machida is gearing up for a return to action after getting knocked out by Mauricio "Shogun" Rua in May. With Shogun out of action until March of 2011, Machida's camp is now looking for an Interim Light Heavyweight Title fight.
According to Machida's manager Ed Soares in comments made to MMAJunkie.com, they're looking for that fight against Rashad Evans.
"Honestly, we'd like to fight 'Shogun,'" Soares said. "Now it's 1-1. It's even. Let's do this rubber match. Let's figure this out. Granted, he won by decision and Lyoto won decisively, but anyone can get caught in this sport. He went in for the kill, and unfortunately, he got caught.
"Since 'Shogun' is out – they're saying until March – personally, when there's an injured champion, I would love to see maybe a Rashad-Lyoto match for the interim title. I think that would be something that would be cool, and the winner of that would get to fight 'Shogun' when he's all healed up in the spring of next year."
Evans has said he's fine waiting for Shogun unless an Interim Title fight gets put together, and he responded on Twitter to the possibility of this fight in a favorable manner.
"I'm with it... That would [be] perfect!" Evans said. "But I doubt the UFC would go [for] it being that he just came off of a loss. But if they decided [to] put the Machida fight on then I'm there."
Penick's Analysis: If there going to put an Interim Title fight together, I wouldn't mind seeing this rematch in the least. Evans is right that the UFC is unlikely to put Machida in the Interim Title fight because of how he lost, but he did do the same thing to Rashad. With Rashad willing to try to get back that win, the UFC could have a couple of good fights on their hands in this rematch and then either a Shogun-Machida rubber match or a Shogun-Rashad fight.
RELATED STORY: UFC QUOTABLES: Rashad Evans says he's fine waiting until 2011 for his shot at Mauricio "Shogun" Rua: [CLICK TO READ FULL ARTICLE]
[Lyoto Machida art by Cory Gould (c) MMATorch.com]
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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