Chinzo Machida started fighting MMA two years after his brother Lyoto Machida made his MMA debut, but his career has yet to take off like the more famous member of his family. His only win in three professional fights happened in 2005, but he’s willing to restart his path in MMA to join “The Dragon” inside the cage.
Chinzo Machida signed with Resurrection Fighting Alliance earlier this year, and he was expected to meet James Barber in June, but he was forced to withdraw with a broken foot. The featherweight will finally make his RFA debut on Nov. 22, when he takes on Justin Houghton.
“I’ve been training hard for a long time,” Machida told MMAFighting.com. “I did my preparation in Belem, Brazil, but now I’m going to Manchester with Lyoto. After his fight [with Mark Munoz] I’ll finish my preparation in California.”
Houghton is 4-2 in MMA with three knockout wins, but Machida, a 12-time national karate champion, wants to prove he’s the better striker at RFA 10.
“I’ve seen [Houghton’s] fights already,” he said. “He’s a muay Thai fighter, likes to stand and fight, but I couldn’t see how his ground game is. It’s an MMA fight. Maybe I’ll have the opportunity to take him down, and I don’t see any problems with that — but I want to fight him standing.”
Machida last fought in an MMA event back in December 2010, but a first-round injury forced him to change his strategy and he ended up losing to Leonardo Laiola at WFE in Salvador, Brazil.
“I broke my hand in the first round of my last fight and fought two more rounds, so my bone shattered,” he said. “I did one surgery but had to do another with the same hand later. It was a slow recovery, but I’m completely healed now. I’ve started to become a more complete fighter, training more ground game and wrestling.”
Lyoto Machida is a former UFC light heavyweight champion, and Chinzo wants to show that that kind of greatness runs in the family. RFA flyweight champion Sergio Pettis recently signed with the promotion to join his brother Anthony Pettis in the UFC, and that’s ultimately what Chinzo Machida wants.
“The UFC is the biggest promotion in the world, that’s where the best fighters are, but I’ll have to show what I can do to get there,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if I’m Lyoto’s brother, he did his career and I’m doing mine. I’ll have to win fights to get in the UFC, and that’s why I’m training and fighting for.”