Chinzo Machida Talks Fighting in his Forties, the Fight of His Life and Machida Family History
Tony Reid – How long do you feel you can fight yet?
Chinzo Machida – “I’m 41 now but I think I can fight for a few more years. If I do a good job and continue to win fights Bellator will give me more challenges and guys at a higher level. I basically just started my career with Bellator. I believe because Bellator wants to get me more fights it will work out. They have done a very good job working with me. I think because I have had such a good experience in Karate and because I train every day, I can have a longer career in fighting. I have to take one fight at a time and see what happens.”
Tony Reid – What has been the fight of your life?
Chinzo Machida – “There are a few fights that I am very glad I got to do but as soon as the fights pass I really don’t care about them anymore. It’s the experience that I took from the fight that I use moving forward. My first fight in Bellator was very memorable. It was against Mario Navarro at Bellator 160. I feel like I did a very good job because I connected on my techniques and I used my own techniques in the first round and got the finish. I think that fight was my best fight ever.”
Tony Reid – The Machida Family history is so rich. What is it like to be a part of such a family?
Chinzo Machida – “First of all my father is a Karate master. He came from Japan to Brazil when he was 22 years old. Since a very young age my brothers and I were exposed to the martial arts and the philosophy. We tried to put all the techniques we learn in our martial arts into our time in mixed martial arts. My father is a very important person in our lives. He explained not just the techniques of the arts but also about the martial arts mentality. That is also very important. He is still teaching us the techniques and philosophy to this day.
“I remember a time when we were on vacation when I was a child. My father invited us to run on the beach. He asked if we wanted to run with him. Each of the kids said ‘Me! Me! Me!’. We all wanted to go run with him. He took us to the beach and said he wasn’t going to run. The three boys were going to run. He was on the beach and he had us run a mile and a half or two miles. At the time we were between eight and twelve years old. About half way through we gave up. My father was not watching us at the moment so we decided to go back to where he was standing. We went back without finishing the run. We came back and my father had built a little mountain, like a little hill in the sand. He told us to sit down and he started to explain about the philosophy of the martial arts and life in general. He said he saw that we didn’t run the entire way to the end. He knew we didn’t finish the run. We were almost there but we came back. He said we had a challenge that we didn’t complete. He pointed to the hill he built and told us to imagine that we were half way up the hill and like our run, imagine if we just got to the middle of the hill and came back. We would never get to the top. If we never got to the top we can’t see the other side of the mountain. You don’t know what is happening there. There are many good things there but we wouldn’t know because we gave up before we got to the top. His lesson was that we have to get to the end and then you will see all the goods things that are there waiting for you. He asked if we agreed and if we understood. Then he had us go run again and make it to the end of the run. That was a very good story and a very good lesson for us. If you have a challenge, it doesn’t matter as much if you are going to win or not but at least you have to get to the end to see what is waiting there for you.”
