Issue 078

August 2011

By Gareth A Davies, MMA and boxing correspondent for The Daily Telegraph, London.

Randy Couture remains to MMA what Lance Armstrong is to cycling. When he rides into any town, necks are craned to get a look at the athlete who defies logic, age, and fights on to set the bar higher. He appealed to young fans… and their grandmothers! After all, he is already a grandfather himself.

Besides the comparison with the iconic American cyclist, you could place Randy in any era of any sport and match him to the best of them. And I mean Pele and Maradonna in soccer, Babe Ruth in baseball, ‘Magic’ Johnson and Larry Bird in basketball, or Dan Marino and Joe Montana in football. There is no question he has transcended the sport, and crossed over into the mainstream. 

Couture exudes all the qualities of the all-American hero. It is why they called him ‘Captain America,’ and he remains the ultimate role model in a sport often pushed aside because of its visceral nature. Yet Couture, 48 on June 22nd, has defied those who say that great sportsmen slow. And defined a generation in the UFC. It seems counter-intuitive, but in MMA, he has proven that fighters can get better with age, as they become more rounded.

Couture has become an MMA legend in the last decade after his Olympic dreams were shattered. Three times he was selected as an alternate in Greco-Roman wrestling for the US Olympic team – Seoul, Barcelona and Atlanta – and came so close over that 10-year period to fulfilling his dream, yet falling short, he vowed that in MMA, he would make his mark. How he made up for it. He remains one of two mixed martial artists to hold UFC titles in two divisions – the other is the Hawaiian lightweight/welterweight champion BJ Penn – yet Couture has held the UFC heavyweight and light heavyweight belts three times in each division. 

He wanted – and still wants in his mind – to set the bar as high as he can take it. He was the master game-planner, the master plotter and arguably the sport’s most respected fighter. It irked me when fans complained about the UFC 105 card in Manchester, where Michael Bisping headlined, and Couture was a late call up to the card, to face Brandon Vera. Those who had already shelled out watched their tickets turn golden in their hands. The MEN Arena sold out. He hadn’t fought outside the United States in nine years, and had never fought in the UK.

Nobody in the sport could ever underestimate Couture, whose Houdini-like escapes from holds, and whose wrestling and boxing were silky and skilful. I worked with him on ESPN’s MMA Live studio set in the arena in Anaheim last year when Cain Velasquez usurped the UFC heavyweight title from Brock Lesnar. Randy was there as the fighter-analyst and, sitting alongside him, you could feed off his cool assurance, and willingness to trade in both banter and chatty analysis of fighters and their strengths and weaknesses. He has been the same in every interview, or even in any podcast I have ever asked him to do. In short, he is the closest thing the sport has to MMA royalty.

When he came to the UK for the UFC 105 event, it amazed me how seamlessly he was able to cross over from hard-nosed MMA interviews, to the BBC’s One Show – a mainstream, family friendly peak-time evening network chat show – and yet he had the cultural nous to be able to fit right in. He charmed the presenters (even though I’m certain to this day they didn’t really know what a sporting legend he really is) and made a legion of new fans with his grizzled look, soft voice and easy manner.

Perhaps if you are called ‘Couture,’ cross-culturalism comes naturally to you. One of my mother’s friends suggested that ‘Randy Couture’ sounded like a fashion house; another suggested it had the ring of a male ‘glamor’ star. The point is this: Couture had cross-over appeal, and that should never be taken for granted. Few fighters in any sport – indeed few sportsmen in history – have enjoyed that cache. You cannot invent it. It is something to do with the humanity of an individual, and that Couture has in abundance. 

If this sounds like a slushy eulogy, it is not meant to be. But MMA needs role models and with Randy’s retirement, following closely on the heels of Chuck Liddell, a vacuum has been left in the sport. Matters in MMA are changing. These men had full lives before the sport became professionalized. With the onset of professionalism, we may never see their like again, for you cannot ‘buy’ the experience they brought from their own lives, into the sport. 

Couture will, of course, continue to be involved in the sport both as a trainer, cornerman, and font of knowledge to those who travel to his Xtreme Couture gym in Las Vegas to garner his expertise. Putting the sport of MMA on the map is only half done. And a role for Randy Couture should be found as a global ambassador for the movement.