I haven't really paid much attention to Machida but I am starting to like him. At least a little.
I still find the Ortiz fight boring because of lack of action but that won him the fight, and he was effective with anything he chose to try, so what the hell. The foot sweep that we have seen in numerous clips in another thread, the double roundkick, the front kick-switch to high round kick. All good stuff. :)
Cung Le has shown all kinds of flashy kung fu-stuff with great success in EliteXC, and also against a very legit fighter in Frank Shamrock. George St.pierre uses the superman punch like it was as normal as a left jab. Anderson Silva finished a guy with a back elbow and spinning back fists are being used by many fighters, 7 years ago it was the common conception that trying a jumping or spinning tecnique would only mean disaster, you on the floor with your opponent on top of you.
MMA has gone a long way and for us who has followed it since at least the end of the 90s it is intriguing to see how fighters develop their game. In the start grappling was the shit, then wrestling was the shit, then sprawl&brawl was the shit, then it started to mix up a little but we would still see (relatively) one-dimensional fighters like Vovchanchyn and Sakuraba owning the show.
Still we thought that conventional wrestling, kickboxing and brazilian jiu-jitsu was the only way to go but with fighters such as mentioned above we see the sport will keep evolving. I see it, and I like it.
War MMA. Boxing IS dead!