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Kilrtoy
10-11-2007, 06:30 PM
With little interest at age 44 of fighting anyone other than the man regarded as the best mixed martial artist in the world, UFC heavyweight champion Randy Couture announced his retirement Thursday.
Couture, a five-time champion and UFC Hall of Famer, had hoped to land a bout with Fedor Emelianenko, the top-rated fighter in the Yahoo! Sports MMA poll of the world's best fighters.
But when reports surfaced Wednesday that Emelianenko had spurned the UFC to sign with the Russian-based M-1 Mix Fight organization, Couture opted to retire. The story was broken by Brian Knapp of The Fight Network, which has a business relationship with Couture.
"I'm tired of swimming upstream at this stage with the management of the UFC," Couture told Knapp. "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."
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Couture's retirement stunned the MMA world, but not apparently UFC officials. Couture had breakfast several weeks ago with UFC president Dana White and owner Lorenzo Fertitta in which he indicated he would retire if he didn't get a match with Emelianenko.
"He told us he is at a crossroads and he said, 'Who else is there for me to fight?" White said of the meeting, which he said occurred around the time of UFC 76, which was Sept. 22 in Anaheim, Calif.
"He told us, 'If I fight anyone but Fedor, then I'm just fighting for the money.' Randy was never a guy who fought for money. He wanted the biggest and best challenges. He has movie deals, TV deals, a lot of (stuff) going on in his life. A lot goes into training for these guys and he just has too many other things going that he wants to deal with if he's not going to fight the best."
Couture's surprise announcement marks his second retirement. He retired after losing a rubber match for the UFC light heavyweight title to Chuck Liddell on Feb. 4, 2006, in Las Vegas.
But nine months later, after Tim Sylvia defended the heavyweight title by defeating Jeff Monson at UFC 65 in Sacramento, Calif., Couture called White and said he wanted to return to challenge Sylvia.
He dominated Sylvia at UFC 68 in Columbus, Ohio, in front of the largest MAA crowd in North American history, winning the heavyweight belt for a third time with perhaps the greatest performance of his career. He gave up more than six inches and 40 pounds to Sylvia, but knocked Sylvia down in the fight's first 10 seconds and pummeled him throughout the five-round bout.
Couture then defended it successfully against Gabriel Gonzaga at UFC 74 on Aug. 25 in Las Vegas.
He broke his arm in that bout, so the UFC had ticketed him next to fight at UFC 80 on Feb. 2 in Las Vegas. White said frequently that if he could land Emelianenko, he'd match him with Couture at UFC 80.
Couture reacted almost instantly to Emelianenko’s signing with M-1.
The swiftness of the move stunned even his close friends. Bas Rutten, Couture's business partner and also a one-time UFC heavyweight champion, did not know about the news Thursday until informed by a reporter.
"At 44, we knew he couldn't fight forever and you knew that sooner or later this day was going to come and he'd shut it down for good," Rutten said. "But to hear this right now, it is a complete surprise. I would have loved to have seen him fight Fedor."
White said he thought Couture would have easily defeated Emelianenko, saying he felt Emelianenko is vastly overrated.
"Couture would have eaten him alive," White said. "It would have been a big fight for us, because of the reputation that Fedor has, but it's not really deserved. Look what he's done: He beat Mark Coleman, who I think was probably 50 something years old and Matt Lindland, who weighs 185 pounds.
"It would have been a big fight, but believe me when I tell you that it would have been no contest. Randy would have destroyed him. Randy is the best heavyweight in the world." Rutten wouldn't go so far as White, but he said he felt Couture had the style to win the fight.
He said Couture would have been able to back Emelianenko up and take him down.
"Fedor's used to pressing the action, but against a guy like Randy, he would have been backing up and it's hard to fight going backwards," Rutten said. "Randy constantly presses the action. Fedor is a very, very good fighter, but he's had problems with Greco-Roman guys and I think it would have been a very good matchup for Randy."
Couture's retirement ends all association, for the time being, with the UFC. He has also decided to quit working on the UFC's television broadcasts, though White said he was only broadcasting to help him learn how to work on-camera.
"I never said no to anything Randy wanted to do," White said. "He wanted to do the TV because it was practice for his acting. I said yes. He wanted me to give his wife (Kim) a job and I said yes.
"Whatever he wanted, we did. Randy is a great, great guy and I have nothing but the most respect for him. He's one of the guys, along with Chuck Liddell and Matt Hughes and Rich Franklin and Joe Rogan who have helped build this thing into what it is. He's a beautiful person and we're always going to feel like Randy is part of our family."
That's what is going on with Randy Couture. Now go to the Y! Sports MMA/Boxing blog and Tell us what you think.
Kevin Iole covers boxing and mixed martial arts for Yahoo! Sports. Send Kevin a question or comment for potential use in a future column or webcast.

Garrddogg
10-11-2007, 07:06 PM
Damn! what a bummer! That guys my hero..
http://www.***boat.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=40948&d=1192158668

XtrmWakeborder
10-11-2007, 07:15 PM
Stupid UFC, they should have signed Fedor. That would have been a blockbuster fight.

Garrddogg
10-13-2007, 03:57 PM
RESIGNATION
By Jack Encarnacao
It is quite a twist that the UFC has fought tooth-and-nail the last seven years to attract mainstream media attention, yet one of the biggest frenzies to date is centered on losing one of their top stars.
In an unexpected move, Randy Couture resigned from all professional association with the promotion yesterday, which included two contracted fights, an on-camera analyst's position, and his heavyweight crown.
UFC president Dana White tagged Couture's decision a "retirement" citing the 44-year-old’s departure from the sport in 2006 before returning in March 2007 to reclaim the heavyweight title from lumbering 6-foot-8, 265-pound Tim Sylvia.
"It's not a retirement," said Couture Friday, who also works as on-air analyst and ambassador for The Fight Network. "It's a resignation from the UFC organization."
Couture would not elaborate on his future plans, thought he's currently on the movie set for The Scorpion King " Rise of the Akkadianâ" in South Africa, of which he has a lead role. Tucked away from the Internet uproar, the soft-spoken fighter seemed unaware of the commotion his defection has caused. "You know I'm not much for talking," he said. "I let my actions speak louder."
The news of Couture's move has created a flurry of analysis and questions in the MMA community, and has made a splash in the larger sports media. ESPN, Sports Illustrated, MSN, the Associated Press and Yahoo! all treated the move as a top story on their websites Thursday alongside major league baseball playoff stories coverage and the latest Britney Spears tidbits.
White, for one, has tried to downplay his promotion's greatest exit to date.
"This is just another day in my life" White told Yahoo! Sports Kevin Iole. "Believe me, as much as I would like to be promoting another Couture fight, it's not the news that is going to kill the UFC."
The quintessential favorite and a figure credited with professionalizing mixed martial arts to the highest degree, Couture (16-8) is beloved in all circles, something that even the sometimes abrasive White understands.
"I'm sure Randy Couture and I are gonna be friends for a long time," White said in an interview with UFC's Thomas Gerbasi published on UFC.com. "Randy Couture is a guy who I've said publicly a million times and I'll say publicly right now who I feel is one of the guys who helped us get here."
White's praise hasn't extended to Couture's confidantes though, which includes Couture's agent Matt Walker, of the Los Angeles-based Gersh Agency.
"He hooked up with some Hollywood agent that I bitch slapped about a month ago, and these Hollywood agents are parasites, so unfortunately this guy is probably in Randy's ear right now," White said. "Apparently Randy's upset about something, and the timing of this thing is a typical Hollywood agent move while Randy's out of town."
Couture says White’s reaction is typical of the problematic attitude the athlete shunned yesterday.
"He doesn't respect anybody unless he controls them," said Couture. "Disrespecting my agent Matt is insulting to me because it says I'm not intelligent enough to make a decision on my own or surround myself with quality people. It's all about respect, something they've never given me or anyone representing me."
Couture has had superlatives heaped on him since May 1997, when he first stepped into the Octagon an unknown wrestler four times shy in his bid to reach the Olympics. Defying the odds became his specialty. In 2003, at the age of 40, he dropped to light heavyweight and toppled Chuck Liddell in what was at the time one of the bigger upsets in the company's history.
His fight against Sylvia in March drew the largest paying live crowd yet to see mixed martial arts in the United States, and the prospect of the 44-year-old battling mother nature and the odds in title defenses to come almost guaranteed lucrative pay-per-view cards.
For such a commodity any fight promotion would clamor to acquire, White told Yahoo's Iole he never said no to anything Couture wanted to do. Couture doesn't agree.
"If he had given me everything I wanted, we wouldn't be where we are today, now would we?"