Blackzilians Founder and Authentic Sports Management President Glenn Robinson, on “Rewind,” discussing Lyoto Machida’s decision to turn down a short-notice bout against Jon Jones:
“Vitor [Belfort] got the call at 12:30 at night East Coast time. That’s when he was called to say, ‘Let’s do this.’ Up until then we all thought that Machida got it and it was over. Then all of a sudden the phone call came in. I think that the UFC believed also that [Machida] was going to take the fight. I know Lyoto’s had some stuff going on. From what I’ve heard, he’s moved to California. I know that he’s got things going on in his life, and perhaps just the timing wasn’t right for his personal life. I read an article with people saying Lyoto turned it down and no one said boo, but I think it’s a very different situation. Lyoto wasn’t scheduled to fight. Lyoto has taken time off to be with his family and has moved his family to another country. There’s other things going on in his life. He has his reasons why he didn’t take the fight at that time, but we don’t know exactly what we are and we’re not going to surmise them, but I think he had some legitimate reasons why he couldn’t take the fight.”