What makes Machida so great?

Last week Lyoto Machida knocked out Rashad Evans to become the new UFC Light Heavy Weight Champion. And within just a few minutes, every commentator and analyst in the business began trying to explain (or explain away) the phenomenon that is Machida. The main ideas they present are thus:

1--It's not because he's a karate fighter; he's trained Mai Thai and boxing. He just happens to be a really good fighter. Karate is not back. Karate is old and out of date.

The problem with this idea is that is doesn't reflect reality. Machida is not a boxer or kick boxer. He style is entirely different. His stance may as well be from another planet, his kicks don't look anything like Mai Thai (am I spelling that right?) and when he clinches he doesn't try for Anderson Silva style knees--he takes people down with beautiful ankle sweeps instead. If you want to see what a really good Mai Thai fighter looks like, look at Anderson Silva. He looks nothing at all like Machida.

2--He is great because he's studied karate, but there's no way anybody else can copy him. Stick with Mai Thai and BJJ. You can almost hear these people pleading with you: "Don't study karate! Please! Machida is great, but we haven't the faintest clue why...we know that Mai Thai works, so please, for the love of all things good, don't study karate!"

Yes, he has been studying karate since he was 5. Yes, he has reached a level of skill that you cannot reach or copy in a few short years. But is that a good reason not to follow in his foot steps? These people are saying that because he is highly skilled nobody should try to reach a similar level of skill...that you would be better off getting your face beat in practicing Mai Thai for a couple years, enjoy a short, glorious career and end it like Chuck Liddell: unable to take even a slight shot without going out.

Yet in all this discussion it seems that nobody is discussing exactly what it is that makes Machida so great at what he does. You can say it's because of "karate", but what does that mean?

I would like to submit that Machida is great because of point fighting. Now, I realize that point fighting has it's problems, and I have often felt the need to get away from it myself. But what is it that Machida does so well? He avoids getting hit, it seems like he's never there, but when he decides to attack, he suddenly is there. His opponent eats a fist and then all of a sudden he's not there anymore. It's like fighting smoke. This is classic point fighting. Machida has trained for years to avoid getting hit, get in his quick shot and then get out of the way of a counter attack. He throws almost nothing except straight shots. He knows that a straight punch will always beat a round punch, so he uses the faster technique.

His stance is classic point fighting stance. It's the traditional karate backward leaning stance: the same stance my instructor uses, that I use and that we train our students to use. With that stance he is able to keep his body away from his opponent, yet can still spring in with a strike at any moment.

Machida will remain champion as long as the other fighters continue to train in the school of "take one to give one". Because Machida is simply in the business of giving...after all, it is better to give than to recieve.