What victory was bigger, Liddell on Couture or Machida on Rashad?

I don't know if Rashad was exactly invincible, he had a few fights prior where he looked beatable (Bisping vs Rashad and his first fight with Tito come to mind.) but he was undefeated, so I'll go with Lyoto's win is bigger. Lyoto actually looked invincible for the longest time before he ran into Shogun.
 
Rashad was definitely not invisible when he fought Lyoto, who then defended it once before becoming a gatekeeper and swapping wins for losses. Rashad got crushed by that shot and KO'ed to then go on to a nice run before meeting Jones and that was the end of his rise.

Chuck/Randy was a big deal because of the timing of it all with TUF and the UFC explosion.
 
MMA impact wise: obviously Chuck/Randy

All time victory wise: obviously Chuck/Randy

Better win all things considered: Machida/Rashad I guess, and only because Chuck won the trilogy and rumours was out doing coke and gambling til 3am for the 1st fight that's the only one he lost
 
Without a doubt chuck. It was huge for him becoming a superstar and really helped catapult the ,combined with the tuf era beginning
 
DanDragon Machi said:
I think Liddell x Couture II was a bigger fighter, on the other hand that Lyoto KO consolidated his mystique

Couture was most popular but Rashad was undefeated at the time
Click to expand...
Chuck's win was more impactful in the annals of MMA history, but the Machida win is more memorable, because of this

Rashad-ko-face.jpg
 
Machida is my guy, but Chuck-Randy was a much bigger fight, both at the time and from a historical perspective. It's not even close.
 
Chuck KOing Randy was a bigger deal in almost all ways. If Chuck had gone out and had a lackluster showing, it would have significantly affected the trajectory of the sport. Forrest/Bonnar got a lot of eyes on MMA for the first time and this was the very next PPV so the exciting finish was massive.

Randy didn't exactly fall into obscurity after this and still had a huge portion of his career left. He was more skilled than Rashad ever was IMHO and Chuck beating him was more difficult and also launched MMA's first megastar.

Despite my sadness in admitting it because I love Machida, the aura of invicibility he had after he beat Rashad was short lived and did not age well.

Rashad himself was a very lackluster fighter for most of his run post TUF. Having 4 controversial decisions and a draw where Tito was deducted a point didn't really make his undefeated record feel like it was worth a damn.

He was definitely supposed to be a "sacrificial lamb" for Chuck to beat to get back into the title picture but the Rashad who showed up for this fight looked completely different than we'd EVER seen him (even physically, he was WAY bigger). This performance was huge but he really never came close to reaching this level again for the rest of his career. He became incredibly gunshy after the Machida loss and narrowly scraped by in all of his wins. Heck, people forget that Forrest was up 2 rounds on him right after the Chuck fight.
 
Chuck vs Randy for sure. 1)Randy had already beaten Chuck (a UFC star) in somewhat of an upset 2)Randy was previously a HW champion, had broken the record for HW title defenses, and was a HW tournament winner. Both guys were stars held in the highest regard at the time.
 
DanDragon Machi said:
I think Liddell x Couture II was a bigger fighter, on the other hand that Lyoto KO consolidated his mystique

Couture was most popular but Rashad was undefeated at the time
Click to expand...
Neither, Couture over Timmy was a much bigger shock to the system at the time.
 
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