Issue 078
August 2011
Ryan Couture has the unenviable task of walking in his father’s footsteps, but he ain’t fazed. In fact, he’s chasing his own legacy.
NEED TO KNOW
Name: Ryan Couture
Age: 28
Started: 2010
Team: Xtreme Couture
Division: Lightweight
Style: BJJ, wrestling
Record: 2-0-0
Like just about every other red-blooded male growing up, Ryan Couture believed his dad was the biggest badass in town. Of course, as the son of UFC Hall of Famer Randy Couture, Ryan just happened to be right.
“I idolized him from the time I was a toddler anyway, so I don’t think his decision to start fighting changed much as far as me looking up to him as the pinnacle of guys out there,” Couture told Fighters Only. “But it definitely added some validity to any claims I may have made as a young kid that my dad was a badass. It gave me video proof to show that my dad really could kick your dad’s ass.”
Growing up in Washington, Couture followed his dad’s lead and embarked on an amateur wrestling career that would last through high school. His parents divorced when he was in the sixth grade and the future MMA prospect lived with his mom while his dad relocated to Oregon. Despite the distance, Couture said the two remained close.
“We would see him on breaks from school and when we could on weekends,” Couture recalls. “My mom was in Seattle and he was up in Oregon, but we still kept contact and talked on the phone every week, and I saw him at least once a month. Then for a whole month in the summer we’d go stay with him.”
As Couture entered high school his father made his UFC debut with a pair of victories in a single night at 1997’s UFC 13 event. Still more spectacle than sport, MMA was very much misunderstood during that time, which led to more than a few interesting conversations with classmates.
“His first fight, I was in ninth grade when that happened,” Ryan remembers fondly. “There was kind of a buzz around school. ‘Is that where one guy dies?’ Nobody knew what it really was, but everybody thought it was kind of interesting and cool so I answered a lot of questions like that. For the next several years people would find out he was fighting and they’d ask the same stupid questions again. ‘Is he ever going to fight Royce Gracie? Isn’t that no rules at all?’”
Despite his interest in both MMA and wrestling, Couture didn’t feel he had the tools necessary to continue his athletic endeavors. Where father boasts a highly decorated collegiate career and several brushes with Olympic glory as a three-time US team alternate, son opted for a more mundane approach to his post-prep school plans.
“By the end of my senior wrestling season, I thought I was just done with sports,” Couture said. “I was so burned out. I had a tough weight-cut that year. I was wrestling at 135 pounds which kind of made sense at the beginning of the season, but I think I grew mid-season because I was killing myself by the time state rolled around. I just wanted to screw around and go have the college experience and just focus on socializing and studying for four years. I got that, and I got out of shape.
“I didn’t think I’d ever really come back to it, but I became a huge fan of the sport in the meantime. I was obviously interested in it because my dad was doing it, but the more the sport grew and evolved, the more I got into it. I started following it on the internet as a fan. I knew everything about every fight that was coming up – way better than I do now. I was following it close and yet I still never thought I would do it. But I still had that curiosity in the back of my head.”
Couture said his father never once pushed him to follow in his combat sports footsteps, but when dad needed help running his Las Vegas-based Xtreme Couture gym, one thing quickly led to another.
“I was training as a hobby just to stay in shape,” Couture says. “I competed in a few jiu-jitsu tournaments and I always thought I might give MMA a try, but I never pictured myself fighting for a living or fighting professionally. I just didn’t think I had it in me. But the more training I did once I got out to Las Vegas in a more serious environment with such a high level of training, I got more and more curious. Then I realized I was hanging with better and better guys and I thought maybe there was a chance I could do it. As it turned out, I had more of an aptitude and a passion for fighting than I did for business.”
Couture’s decision to fight brought him immediate attention. Beginning with his amateur career in 2009, Ryan’s every in-cage move has been followed with great interest. Observers want to know if the son of ‘Captain America’ is also a natural.
When Couture made the decision to turn pro in 2010, Strikeforce immediately snapped him up.
And while Ryan readily admits the added pressure of carrying his family name can sometimes prove burdensome, the benefits have also proven valuable. “There are way more pros than there are cons. It’s opened a ton of doors. I wouldn’t already be fighting in televised Strikeforce events if I had any other last name. I’ve just done my best to put in the hours at the gym, train hard and fight as well as I can – win fights and hopefully do it in an exciting fashion. I think everything else will work itself out.
“People can say what they want about how I got where I am, but only as long as they recognize I’m working hard to live up to that, to put on a show, and to win.”
Couture said his father’s busy schedule in and out of the cage has kept the two from training together on any sort of routine basis, but he often turns to his dad for advice in all aspects of his burgeoning career.
He admits: “We don’t train together too much. Usually, if he’s in town, he’s training for a fight himself. That’s probably going to change now that he’s retired, but he travels so much and he’s on the road so much it really wouldn’t be a consistent arrangement for him to be my head trainer. But I think he checks in and if he caught wind that I wasn’t taking it seriously or that I was slacking off he’d let me know and he’d remind me that this is a serious sport.
“He’s part of my management team and he and Sam Spira are doing a great job of taking care of me and steering me career-wise. He’s got his input there and probably wouldn’t hesitate to speak up if I wasn’t doing what I needed to be doing to make the most of it. On the occasion where we get to really sit down and have time to unwind and talk, whatever it is that’s on my mind – whether it’s a fight issue or training issue or anything else, I’ll bounce it off him. He’s obviously got a lot of experience in all of those fields so it’s always interesting.”
Couture made it through his amateur career with an unblemished mark, and submission wins in his first two pro fights have left some MMA pundits predicting big things for the 28-year-old. For his part, Couture said he’s not trying to tackle anything too quickly and believes fans can enjoy the ride if they’re willing to take a similarly patient approach.
“I’m already getting people asking me about when I’m going to fight for a title or when I’m going to be in the UFC,” Couture said. “I’m like, ‘Dude, I’ve got two fights. I’m barely not an amateur anymore.’ I’m a long way from calling out Gilbert Melendez or really just about anybody on the UFC roster. I just don’t belong there yet, but I’m working hard towards it and I believe eventually I’ll get there.
“I actually think it’s kind of interesting from a fan’s perspective, if anyone is so inclined, to be able to follow someone right from scratch to wherever I’m able to take this thing. It’s kind of a cool thing for a fan to get to see. I’m sure I’ll have some speed-bumps along the way and stumbling blocks, so it will be interesting for me to see how I deal with that with so many eyes on me, and I think it’s interesting to get to watch and see how it goes.”
Randy Couture recently hung up the gloves for a third time following a UFC 129 loss to Lyoto Machida. However, unlike two previous retirement attempts, it seems the former UFC champion, at the age of 47, is finally comfortable walking away. However, the sport will not lose the Couture name as Ryan is ready to represent the family brand. Exactly how that affects him going forward remains to be seen.
“I think it will be interesting to see,” he finished. “I don’t know if there will be more attention focused on me to keep the Couture name strong, or if people will kind of forget about me because dad’s not reminding them that the name is worth paying attention to. Either way, I’ve got to train hard and win fights and the rest will fall into place.”
COUTURE ICON ISSUE: KEVIN JAMES
“Whatever Randy chooses to do in life, he’ll find a way to win. And like he has done in the Octagon so many times before, he’ll win with class. That’s what I admire so much about him. He never talks trash about his opponents. In fact, he usually says something complimentary about them. Randy is so low key and soft spoken, he’s truly one of the nicest guys I know. He’s like Andy Griffith, if Andy Griffith could ground ‘n’ pound the crap out of you”
