Randy Couture

In a recent conference broadcast of ufc.com, Dana White stated that the UFC would be offering a fight to Randy Couture, that fight would be against top heavyweight Antonio Rodrigo Nogeuira (Big Nog).

Of course, Randy Couture resigned from his contract with the UFC a couple of weeks ago, stating that he would no longer be fighting for the UFC, announcing for the UFC or otherwise. Randy stated at that time and in his own press conference later that it was a combination of money, respect and that the UFC was unable to secure a fight with Emelianenko Fedor.



Randy believes that the only fight worth fighting is against Fedor, widely considered to be the best heavyweight, if not best pound for pound, fighter in the world. At 44 years old, Randy only has a few fights left in him and he wants to fight the best.

In my opinion, Nogeuira is one of the best in the world after heavyweight. In fact if I had to rank the top four heavyweights in the world, they would be Fedor, Couture, Nogeuira and Barnett, not necessarily in that order. If Randy Couture wants to retire from the sport, all the power to him, but if he wants to quit the UFC just because they were unable to land Fedor, then complain because he heard that the UFC was going to pay Fedor a boat load of money to secure the fight...well, I don't know.

I'm a big fan of Randy Couture and whatever he needs to do, I respect that. However, as a fight fan I'd rather see Couture vs Nogeuira than a court battle between Dana White and Randy Couture.

As you may or may not have heard by now, M-1 Global, a new MMA promotion which was formerly M-1 out of russia has signed Fedor Emelianenko to a 6 fight 2 year deal. The UFC has been trying to sign Fedor since they purchased Pride earlier this year, but couldn't come to terms.

There is an interesting clause in Fedor's contract which states (approximately) that M-1 will pay any UFC heavyweight champion who wants to fight Fedor in M-1 a million dollars more than the UFC will pay. I'd love to read how that section really reads.

M-1 and Fedor specifically mentioned Randy Couture although Couture still has two fights left on his UFC contract. Dana White has already said that he won't let Randy out of his contract, but Randy has already resigned from the UFC.

Randy Couture is holding a press conference on Thursday to discuss his exit from the UFC and hopefully his future plans.

If M-1 can sign Fedor, Josh Barnett and Randy Couture, they'll have the beginning of a decent heavyweight division with arguably three of the top 5 heavyweights in the world. Of course this weekend the UFC announced that they signed Brock Lesnar to a deal, Lesnar, giving some time and the proper training has the physical tools to be a dominant force in the UFC heavyweight picture.

It's worth noting the following. The UFC will not be destroyed by this. In fact, 80% of UFC fans probably don't even know who Fedor or Josh Barnett are. For example, this past weekend I had three guys over to watch UFC 77. All three guys actively train standup and BJJ at a local club. When they asked me what I thought about Randy retiring, I told them that he didn't retire, he wants to fight Fedor...none of them knew who Fedor was.

Worldwide, Fedor is a star of MMA, but for most of the TUF generation of MMA fan he doesn't even exist. A fight with Randy may or may not change that. I don't think anyone is going to spend $50 on a PPV for one fight...M-1 needs to fill out their stable of fighters and have a spectacular first card.

Quick question, any opinions on the new look for the site? I'm personally sitting on the fence between the old and new looks. Vote in the comment section.

According to the Fight Network and mmajunkie.com Randy Couture has decided to leave the UFC.

This is the second big hit for the UFC heavyweight division in about a week. Earlier this week Fedor Emelianenko signed with M-1 or former M-1 out of Russia.

Here's a quote from "The Natural".

“I appreciate this opportunity the sport of MMA and the UFC has given me,” Couture told the website. “However, I’m tired of swimming upstream at this stage with the management of the UFC. It only makes sense at this point in my career to fight Fedor Emelianenko, and since he’s now signed with another organization, I feel like it’s time to resign and focus on my other endeavors.“

Randy Couture is a class act and at 44 years old he has nothing left to prove, whether he fought Fedor or not he is a true MMA legend and will be missed inside the ring. His last two victories over Tim Sylvia and Gabriel Gonzaga defied all odds and truly put him at the top of the sport.

So, this leaves Tim Sylvia, Brandon Vera, Cheik Kongo, Antonio Nogeuira, Mirko Cro Cop, Andrei Arlovski and all the other top 10 UFC heavyweight contenders in immediate title contention. Any of these guys could be 1-2 wins away from holding the UFC heavyweight title.

Randy Couture finished his fight against Gabriel Gonzaga on Saturday night...and he did it with a broken arm. Randy suffered the break in round 3 as a result of blocking one of Gonzaga's high kicks.

This from mmaweekly.com

“After the fight, the doc check my hand and checked everything and I just thought it was a real good bruise, a good deep bone bruise,” said Couture.

“By the end of that evening, that night, and the next morning it was very swollen and I couldn’t pronate or supinate my hand, you know turn my wrist back or forth. I realized at that point that I might have a broken bone in there. I went to the chiropractor that afternoon and he has an x-ray machine and he put it up there on the screen and sure enough it was broke clean through.”

Now that's tough. I bow to Randy, 44, kicking butt and finishing a fight with a broken arm. Yep, legend sounds about right.

Starting tonight at 10:00pm (ET/PT) Spike TV will be featuring Randy "The Natural" Couture, the current UFC heavyweight champion. This is of course a prelude to this weekends UFC 74 event which features a heavyweight title bout between Randy Couture and Gabriel Gonzaga.

Also on this weekends UFC 74 Fight Card is Josh Koscheck taking on MMA wizard Georges St Pierre.

The schedule tonight on Spike TV

10:00pm UFC Unleashed
11:00pm Countdown to UFC 74 Couture vs Gonzaga
midnight UFC all access : Randy Couture

For those of you who miss it tonight, it looks like Spike TV will be replaying the all access and countdown portions on Saturday starting at 5:30pm ET/PT

UFC 74 starts at 7:00pm PT/10:00pm ET on Saturday August 25th.

Please note before reading my list that these are my favourite fighters, not the fighters which are the best. That's a different list, perhaps entitled "Top 10 Best Figthers".

So, I wrote the title to this little entry and now I'm stuck, how do you pick a favourite. I've been watching MMA and particularly the UFC and PrideFC for so long that I feel like I'm picking one of my children as a favourite over another child. It's not fair, but I've made the commitment and now I'm going to follow through with it.


#10 BJ Penn is one of my 10 most favourite fighters. BJ Penn is made of rubber, probably the best natural fighter in MMA. BJ's appearance on the Ultimate Fighter TV series just solidifies this position. The guy is truly funny!

#9 Wanderlei Silva. Silva is an animal in the ring, pure and simple all out agression. A Wanderlei Silva fight is one of the most exciting things to watch. Even his recent losses to Cro Cop and Henderson were amazing fights.

#8 Royce Gracie. When I watch the old UFC fights with Royce Gracie I can't help but be amazed. Certainly Royce had the training advantage over his opponents, but watch carefully. Royce is tough, he took punches and kept coming. Watch his not so old fight against Sakuraba or his fight against Matt Hughes. Royce didn't win those fights, but his toughness came through.

#7 Kevin "The Monster" Randleman. Whenever the "Monster" steps into the ring (or cage), you get the feeling that something super-human is going to happen. Kevin Randleman is a freak of nature, strong and quick. Watching him drop Fedor on his head is still one of my favourite highlights.

#6 Mirko Cro Cop. Mirko suffered a loss recently to Gabriel Gonzaga, but it isn't Mirko's first loss. He came back before and he will again. He's an exciting fighter and doesn't talk trash, for that he's #6

#5 Fedor. Although this is a favourite list and not best fighter list, Fedor deserves to be on here out of simple respect. He's the best of the best.

#4 Matt Serra comes in at #4. Ok everybody, accuse me of jumping on the Matt Serra bandwagon, but Matt has paid his dues in this sport. The first fights I ever saw Matt in were an eye opener to me. I'd never seen anybody transition positions as smoothly and easily as Serra.

#3 Randy Couture makes my favourite MMA fighter list at number three. Randy is a class act, always has respect for an opponent and despite being an underdog in almost every fight he's ever had he's the UFC heavyweight champion at 43 years old.

#2 My second favourite MMA fighter is Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira. He never gives up in a fight, he is tough as nails and seems to always have respect for his opponents. Big Nog is one of the true talents in MMA. In a fight against Nog, if your name isn't Fedor, you'd better be prepared to lose!

#1 My favourite fighter has to be Chuck Liddell. I'm not saying that because Mr Liddell has an upcoming fight with Quinton "Rampage" Jackson. In fact, I'm picking Rampage to win that fight. I picked Chuck because he has consistently said what he was going to do, then do it. No fanfare, no badmouthing, just great exciting fights, usually ending in TKO's.

I'm going to claim this outright...UFC 73 is the best card that the UFC has ever put on.

Part of press release from ufc.com

“We have five UFC events lined up now through July in the US and UK, and every one of them is stacked with great fights,” said UFC President Dana White. “No matter where we have a UFC, our goal is always the same – to deliver the best fights between the best mixed martial arts fighters. Our fans know they will always see a good fight, and that’s why the UFC reigns supreme in live sports today.”

White continues, “UFC 73 is one of the best cards we’ve put together this year. It’s going to deliver the one-two punch fight fans want – it has Tito Ortiz and Rashad Evans, two all-state college wrestlers, both who dislike each other, settling their differences in the Octagon, as well as title defenses by our two champions Anderson Silva and Sean Sherk. We’re working on more fights right now to pack this card even heavier from top to bottom.”

About his upcoming fight versus Rashad Evans, “Huntington Beach Bad Boy” Tito Ortiz stated, “Everybody should expect fireworks. Rashad is standing in the way of my getting another title shot, and my prediction is that he won’t be able to handle my tempo or the 18,000 Tito Ortiz fans that are in Sacramento to see me win. My prediction is that fans will definitely get their money’s worth.”

Evans countered, “Tito needs to learn the meaning of respect. On July 7, I’m going to teach him what that’s all about. Let him come down from the mountain to Greg Jackson’s training camp and he’ll see what he’s up against. I’m focused and on a mission, and my goal is to knock him out.”

Read more at ufc.com

What a difference a year makes, especially to the UFC heavyweight division. Just a year ago, it was thought by many that the UFC heavyweight division was the least interesting of the weight classes. In fact, the moment that Tim Sylvia defeated Andrei Arlovski for the UFC heavyweight title in April 2006, it became the UFC's most boring division. In fact, 2 minutes and 43 seconds into that fight Arlovski went down and with it, the excitement left.

July of last year saw a rematch with Sylvia facing Arlovski again, but unlike their first two bouts this one would go the distance. It was the longest 25 minutes of my MMA watching life. Neither fighter engaged, neither landed big shots or attempted big take downs. Something had to be done, the hard core UFC fans did not want to see Arlovski Sylvia 4, and there were no other real challengers.

Something has happened since then, barely 9 months have passed and one title defense later sees the UFC's heavyweight division as the best in the sport. The first event was the signing of Pride standout heavyweight Mirko "Cro Cop". Mirko's incredible striking and strong take down defense earned him recognition as one of the 5 best heavyweights in the world. It was assumed by many, including myself, that Mirko was brought in as a hired gun to end Tim Sylvia's reign of terror and restore honor to the UFC heavyweight ranks.

Mirko may not get the chance...somebody beat him to it. As it turns out 43 year old Randy "The Natural" Couture decided to come out of retirement and challenge for the heavyweight title. While I'm not a huge Tim Sylvia fan, I did not give Randy much of a chance because of Tim's enormous size and reach advantage, not to mention that he's 12 or 13 years younger than Randy. Randy proved me wrong by dominating a 5 round fight. The excitement was back and Randy Couture was back on top!

UFC president Dana White was apparently not satisfied with just having a few good heavyweight fighters though, recently he's signed Brazilian submission masters Antonio Rodrigo Nogeura and Fabricio Werdum to UFC contracts. It is unknown when "Big Nog" will get his first fight in the UFC, but we do know that Werdum is to fight former heavyweight champion Andrei Arlovski on April 21, 2007 at UFC 70 "Nations Collide". Oh, did I forget to mention the perennial heavyweight contender Heath Herring? While Heath hasn't looked spectacular in his first two UFC outings, he was always near the top when he fought in Japan's Pride organization.

So, here's how the UFC Heavyweight division stacks up as I see it:

1 Randy Couture - UFC Heavyweight Champion
2 Mirko Cro Cop - #1 contender (will get a title shot if he wins at UFC 70 against Gabriel Gonzaga)
3 Antonio Rodrigo Nogeura - #2 contender, no fights set yet.
4 Andrei Arlovski, Tim Sylvia, Fabricio Werdum are all tied for this spot as I see it.
5 Gabriel Gonzaga - if he beats Cro Cop at UFC 70 he will get a title shot.

It's also been rumored that a win at UFC 70 by Andrei Arlovski will get him another title shot later this year.

2007 is a banner year for UFC heavyweight fans. I for one am enjoying the it.

Randy Couture is the current UFC Heavyweight Champion, courtesy of a sound beating that he gave Tim "The Maine-iac" Sylvia on March 3rd, 2007. The fight went the full 5 rounds, but Randy Couture dominated the action from the first punch, right up until the final take down. In fact, the first punch thrown put Tim Sylvia on the canvas, something that very few people thought that Randy Couture would be able to do. Conventional wisdom was that Tim Sylvia was too big, strong, young and too good a striker for forty three year old Randy Couture to overcome; Randy Couture has made a career out of defying conventional wisdom.

The next question that every Mixed Martial Arts fan is asking is; "Can Randy Couture find a way to defeat Mirko Cro Cop?". It's a simple question, but there is no simple answer. To figure out this riddle, we must go through each fighter's history, looking at various skills of their past opponents and how they performed against these opponents. Of course, once we're done with the analysis, we need to apply "The Couture Factor". The Couture Factor is simply stated as:

"Never, ever count Randy Couture out"

This should be written in stone and kept in the UFC vaults to be placed ring side for each and every Randy Couture fight.

First, let's categorize our two warriors. First off, I th‌ink it's pretty fair to call Mirko Cro Cop a striker. He is probably the best striker in MMA today. It's also easy to Categorize Randy Couture, he is a wrestler, sure he knows submissions and is a decent striker, but when it comes right down to it, Randy likes to get you in the clinch, take you down and ground and pound his way to victory.

Mirko Cro Cop vs Wrestlers: For the purpose of this piece, I'm going to call Fedor a wrestler, although he has advanced submission and striking skills, his game is largely similar to a wrestler. Here is a list of the well known wrestlers that Mirko Cro Cop has faced:
1) Fedor Emelianenko
2) Mark Coleman
3) Kevin Randleman
4) Josh Barnett

Against the above fighters, Mirko Cro Cop has two wins over Josh Barnett, a win over Mark Coleman, a loss to Fedor and splits a win and a loss with Kevin Randleman. That makes him 4-2 against wrestlers.

Randy Couture vs strikers: Since I only picked four wrestlers for Cro Cop, I will narrow my striker list to four for Randy Couture:
1) Tim Sylvia
2) Chuck Liddell
3) Vitor Belfort
4) Pedro Rizzo

Randy's record against this list of great strikers is one win over Sylvia, one win and two losses to Liddell, two wins and a loss to Belfort and two wins over Rizzo. That makes Randy Couture 6-3 vs strikers.

They've each won 66% of their fights against the other's style, so, their records do not show an advantage to either fighter.

Like the fight between Sylvia and Couture, many fans are picking Mirko Cro Cop to easily defeat Randy Couture, they think that Cro Cop, like Chuck Liddell will be able to avoid Randy's take downs and pick him apart with superior striking skills. These fans may indeed be correct, if you watch many of Mirko Cro Cop's fights, they end similarly to Randy's losses to Chuck Liddells, a hard punch grounding the opponent and Cro Cop moving in to finish with hard shots while standing over his opponent. Mirko Cro Cop also has a weapon that Chuck rarely uses, high kicks to the head. Cro Cop's left shin to the right side of an opponents face often signals the end of the night, just ask Wanderlei Silva, Igor Vovchanchyn or my personal favorite, Dos Caras Jr. who came into the Pride ring in a wrestlers mask and woke up wondering where he was.

If Randy is to pull this fight out he must find a way to take Cro Cop down. This will not be easy as Mirko has a sprawl very similar to Chuck Liddell's and he will make Randy pay on the way in.

So, to answer my own question, can Randy Couture defeat Mirko Cro Cop, of course he can. This is MMA and on any given night one talented fighter has a chance against another. The better question is; will Randy Couture Defeat Mirko Cro Cop? To answer that, we will need to wait until fight night.

If new UFC Heavyweight Champion, Randy Couture has his way, he'll be fighting Mirko Cro Cop sooner, rather than later. Randy thinks that if he can get to Mirko before Mirko becomes too accustomed to fighting in the cage, it'll be to his advantage. After his big win over Tim Sylvia, who's going to argue with Randy Couture?

March 3rd, 2007. That's the date that Randy "The Natural" Couture faces Tim "The Mainiac" Silvia at UFC 68 in Columbus Ohio. That's the date that Randy Couture wants to make Mixed Martial Arts history. Randy Couture is no stranger to the UFC heavyweight division. He won the heavyweight title on two separate occasions. But, that was in 1997 and 2001. In fact, his last two outings in the heavyweight division, both in 2002, ended badly for Randy. His conclusion at the time is that the fighters were too big for him. My conclusion was "now the big guys can fight". Randy was once able to out skill much larger opponents, but as the skill differences lessened, his success did also.

Not to be kept down, Randy Couture came back, reinventing himself as a light heavyweight fighter. Once again, Randy was dominant. He was now an exceptionally strong and skilled light heavyweight and seemed to be in his element. With dominant victories over Chuck Liddell, Tito Ortiz and Vitor Belfort Randy seemed unstoppable. That is until his first and second rematches against Chuck Liddell. In those outings, it was Chuck's superiour striking, not his size which brought Randy down.

The question on March 3rd will be this. Is Tim Sylvia too big and too strong for Randy Couture? Randy will be 43 years old and if he comes into this fight in great shape he'll likely be around 215 pounds. In contrast, Tim Silvia will be 30 years old and will need to cut some weight to fit into the UFC's heavyweight limit of 265 pounds.

Tim Sylvia is primarily a striker, he uses his huge reach advantage (Tim is 6'8" tall) well. He stays to the outside and picks opponents apart with his jab and waits for one to come into his range, then throws a big right. Tim also has an excellent sprawl and his extreme height makes it difficult for even very good wrestlers, Jeff Monson included, to turn him over. In his most recent fight with Jeff Monson, Tim even showed some decent ground work in almost submitting Monson.

When the cage closes and the fight begins, we can expect the usual from Tim Sylvia. He will stay well on the outside, expecting Randy to shoot and ready to defend against it. Randy is an excellent wrestler with near Olympic credentials. We can expect Randy Couture to throw some long punches, attempting to get inside Tim's range (without getting hit) to take him down.

About one minute into the fight Randy will attempt his first shot, he will throw a two punch combination to confuse Silvia, then get his underhooks in place. Randy will need to be aware of Tim's knees from this position as his size disadvantage will leave his head in just the right place for a devastating knee strike. If all the stars are aligned properly, Randy will get his takedown, but it's too early in the fight for Randy to finish Tim. Tim is just too strong to be submitted, ground and pounded, or kept down for long early in the first round. Tim will either get back up or be stood up by the ref.

Here's where my crystal ball gets a little fuzzy. Randy will now have some confidence that he can keep Silvia down and Silvia will have some confidence that he can get up if Randy does put him down. Look for Silvia to come forward a little more with strikes, even trying a head kick. Head kicks are nice, but Randy Couture is not Tra Telligman and high kicks on Randy Couture might end in disaster for Tim Silvia. I believe Randy will grab a leg on one of these attempts and take Tim down again, this time it will be worse for Silvia.

As the fight wears on, Tim's lack of cardio will begin to show and Randy will become more and more dominant.

In the final analysis, I don't believe Tim's punches will be coming at Randy as fast or as hard as Chuck Liddell's. I also don't believe that Tim's take down defence is as good as Chuck's. I will predict that Randy Couture will win this fight either late in the first or in the second round by ref's stoppage or submission.

Ladies and gentlemen, the new world heavyweight champion, Randy "The Natural" Couture.