This Month’s MMA Birthdays: Lyoto Machida Celebrates No. 40

Lyoto Machida carried the flag for an entire segment of the martial arts community and did so as one of the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s most consistent and accomplished competitors. “The Dragon” will celebrate his 40th birthday on May 30.

Machida sports a 23-8 career record, with wins over onetime Strikeforce champions Dan Henderson and Gegard Mousasi, current Bellator MMA titleholder Ryan Bader and six former UFC champions: Rich Franklin, B.J. Penn, Tito Ortiz, Rashad Evans, Mauricio Rua and Randy Couture. The Shotokan karate stylist was at the height of his power in 2009, when he knocked out Evans to captured the undisputed light heavyweight crown in the UFC 98 main event before 12,606 fans at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. While his stay at the top was brief, Machida’s reign had a lasting impact on mixed martial arts and showed once again that karate could serve as a functional base inside the cage. The well-traveled Brazilian will face Vitor Belfort in a clash between fading legends at UFC 224 on May 12 in Brazil.

Others in MMA celebrating a birthday during the month of May:

MAY 1

Kiichi Kunimoto, 37
Chad Mendes, 33
Dakota Cochrane, 32
Liz McCarthy, 32
Anistavio Medeiros de Figueiredo, 30
David Teymur, 29

MAY 2

Garret Nybakken, 37
Alberto Mina, 36
Kikuyo Ishikawa, 34
Alex Nicholson, 28
Justin Scoggins, 26

MAY 3

Sam Greco, 51
Shonie Carter, 46
Pedro Rizzo, 44
John Makdessi, 33
Patrick Holohan, 30
Bryan Barberena, 28
Mariana Morais, 22

MAY 4

Victor Henry, 31
Nate Williams, 30
Lemmy Krusic, 29
Roman Szymanski, 25

MAY 5

Alex Schoenauer, 42
Mizuto Hirota, 37
Steve Steinbeiss, 37
Lukasz Bugara, 32
Cortney Casey-Sanchez, 31

MAY 6

Luiz Jorge Dutra Jr., 36
Sam Alvey, 32
Akop Stepanyan, 32
Beneil Dariush, 29

MAY 7

Frank Trigg, 46
Lodune Sincaid, 45
Kurt Pellegrino, 39
Ian McCall, 34

MAY 8

Jorge Patino, 45
Caol Uno, 43
Tatsuya Kawajiri, 40
Manny Gamburyan, 37
Jessica Aguilar, 36
Mikey Gomez, 36
Danillo Villefort, 35

MAY 9

Spencer Fisher, 42
Antwain Britt, 40
Shinya Aoki, 35
Chuka Willis, 25

MAY 10

Anthony Perosh, 46
Yoshiyuki Yoshida, 44
Jackie Vandenburgh, 37
Cory Hendricks, 30

MAY 11

Jeremy Lang, 43
Melvin Manhoef, 42
Magomed Sultanakhmedov, 34
Gilbert Jimenez, 33
Chas Skelly, 33
Joseph Sandoval, 32
Kamaru Usman, 30
Frankie Perez, 29

MAY 12

Louis Taylor, 39
Damian Grabowski, 38
Keri Anne Taylor-Melendez, 34
Junie Allen Browning, 33

MAY 13

Fredson Paixao, 39
Yan Cabral, 35
Guilherme Viana, 32
Yusuke Yachi, 28

MAY 14

Urijah Faber, 39
Tom DeBlass, 35
Artur Guseinov, 34
Alvaro Herrera, 28

MAY 15

Shane DeZee, 41
Josh Burns, 40
Tom Lawlor, 35
Kenji Yamamoto, 34
Brett Chism, 31

MAY 16

Hacran Dias, 34
Darren Elkins, 34
Anthony Birchak, 32
Nazareno Malegarie, 32

MAY 17

Matt Lindland, 48
Cheick Kongo, 43
Alistair Overeem, 38
Dan Hardy, 36
Paul Bradley, 35
Rich Hale, 33

MAY 18

Muhsin Corbbrey, 40
Gabriel Gonzaga, 39
Kazuhisa Watanabe, 35
Frank Camacho, 29

MAY 19

Andre Gusmao, 41
Wagner da Conceicao Martins, 40
Georges St. Pierre, 37
John Maguire, 35
Augusto Sakai, 27
Sergey Khandozhko, 26

MAY 20

Steve Berger, 45
Roger Huerta, 35
Alexander Shlemenko, 34
Jinh Yu Frey, 33

MAY 21

Bruce Buffer, 61
Scott Smith, 39
Ricardo Lamas, 36
Renato Carneiro, 29

MAY 22

Murilo Rua, 38
Tim Snyder, 38
Mark Oshiro, 35
Fumihiro Kitahara, 34
Joe Lauzon, 34
Keita Nakamura, 34
Teemu Packalen, 31
Steve Garcia, 26

MAY 23

Beau Baker, 39
Sean Loeffler, 36
Jordan Dowdy, 32
Myles Price, 30

MAY 24

Paulo Filho, 40
Frank Mir, 39
Alex Serdyukov, 38
Josh Thornburg, 34

MAY 25

Brad Blackburn, 41
Hudson Rocha, 37
Mark Anthony Serkez, 37
Ulysses Gomez, 35
Dan Lariviere, 35
Scott Askham, 30
Ben Fodor, 30

MAY 26

Kenny Florian, 42
Rob McCullough, 41
Lyman Good, 33
Jeremy Stephens, 32
Ricky Steele, 30

MAY 27

Gideon Ray, 45
Chris Cariaso, 37
Will Campuzano, 32
Diego Brandao, 31
Michael Hill, 31
Anthony Leone, 31
Geane Herrera, 28

MAY 28

Rory Singer, 42
Andy Wang, 41
Aaron Rosa, 37
Scott Heckman, 34

MAY 29

Travis Fulton, 41
Mamoru Yamaguchi, 41
Georgi Karakhanyan, 33
Steven Peterson, 28

MAY 30

Lyoto Machida, 40
Yves Jabouin, 39
Ivan Menjivar, 36
Bart Palaszewski, 35
Amanda Nunes, 30

MAY 31

Akitoshi Tamura, 38
Maria Rios, 35
Elias Theodorou, 30
Jessin Ayari, 26