Karate in MMA Analysis of Lyoto Macida’s Career and Fighting Style

Fighting as a sport represents the phenomenon of civilization which involves refined and legalized fight between two people with strict limitations. Although we find roots of MMA in Ancient Greece, officially it is a relatively new sport, created at the end of the 20th century. It united all well-known martial arts into one system, and this paper reflects on the distinguished representative and “modern ambassador” of karate, Lyoto Machida. Machida had 29 official MMA fights in various organizations, and in 2009 he became the world champion at the Ultimate Fighting Championship, the world’s best MMA organization. The importance of winning this championship is great for karate and it lies in the confirmation of the applicability of karate in real fight. The aim of this paper is to describe his successful career in sports and to look into the fighting style which brought him glory