Issue 031

November 2007

Rich Franklin is the all-American good guy; educated, articulate and athletic – He is the everyman every body would like to be. He is confidant without being immodest, intelligent without being aloof, and you get the feeling that away from the Octagon, he is just like you and me. 

The UFC being the huge entity that it is, Franklin’s tenure as middleweight champion brought with it celebrity and fame, and while some revel in it and other’s hide from it, the Ohio native tries to carry on with his life as normal. “It’s easy to get caught up a little bit in this kind of stuff. I could see it start to happen as the fame kicked in but all in all I'm not big on the fame and I'm not big on the attention. From growing up and being a normal kid, I wasn't some sort of prodigy athlete who was expected to be something, I was just your average run-of-the-mill kid. Becoming a MMA fighter was really more or less an accident.

“I'm the same person now that I was when I was climbing up the ranks. I do the same things and enjoy the same things out of life. You know it’s hard, it’s just difficult for someone like me to abandon my roots and become somebody that I'm completely not. 

“The funny thing about the fan base for the UFC or MMA is I'm recognised by nine-year-old girls, 90-year-old men and everything in between.” 

Out to reclaim his belt, he faces off with Anderson Silva in October. Silva was the first man to beat the American in three years (not to mention one of only two men to hand him a loss in his entire career). Losing his title to Silva brought with it some soul searching, though Franklin is keen to point out that it wasn’t complacency that cost him the belt. “It wasn’t a question of believing my own hype as I'm one to question my own hype, I sit back and ask 'is Rich Franklin as good as his hype, or is the hype as good as Rich Franklin?' I think that’s what keeps me level headed and what keeps me working hard, is that if my hype is that big I have to perform at that level so I have to keep increasing my skill set and my ability. 

“It’s difficult when the fame hits because its easy to take your eye off the ball. I have many different avenues of business that I take care of at home, and the UFC has me doing a lot of PR work. You can find yourself going from an athlete who trains all the time to being an athlete who markets himself personally as a business, there’s also helping market the UFC on television shows and everything, and suddenly with everything that you're doing its difficult to remain focussed on the one thing that’s your money maker, which is your training and your fighting.” 

For Franklin, life goes by one day at a time, and each and every day is filled with the thing that drives him forward – his Christian faith. “I just take life one day at a time, you know? It’s just one day at a time in training, and one fight at a time. God brings to you trials and tribulations I guess, and I guess it was meant to be that I lost my title to Silva. That kind of stuff happens.”

If, as Franklin put it, ‘that stuff happens, I asked why he thought that was the case, and why it was time for him to lose to Silva. “You know, it wasn't part of the plan. Often I wake up and I believe God has a plan for everything, I'm at point A and he wants me to gets top point B, and there are many different paths I could travel to get there. I don't know which way he's going to take from to get from one to the other. Winning may be part of that path and losing may be part of that path. 

“I did it after the Silva loss. I sat there and I asked myself why? Why do things happen like they do? Although you don't have the answer, many years down the road I'll understand why.” 

Such a statement could only come from a truly humble person, and while fighters are often respected if they act so, Franklin can appreciate those who don’t. “I think this sport needs guys like me that are humble, and I think it needs guys that like to talk trash. If everyone was like me then nobody would get riled up. If everyone talked trash then it would look just like pro-wrestling. 

“I think that my type of personality will appeal to a certain kind of fan, even maybe some of the people that like to talk trash and drink beer, my personality might appeal to them and they respect me. 

“You've got somebody on the flip side like Quinton, who is funny with his trash talking but is a very different personality to myself, I think he appeals to a very different kind of fanbase to myself but I would imagine the two of us have a lot of overlap. Really when it comes down to it our approach into a fight may be different but we're not much different guys. He's a Christian guy, I'm a Christian guy, he's actually a pretty humble guy but he knows how and when to speak and he's a little better at it than I am.” 

Franklin’s next test will come on October 20^th in his hometown of Cincinnati. The 32-year-old former high school teacher will face off with Silva once again, this time with the Brazilian as champion, but with the support of a home crowd. If you think that Franklin is looking past the fight, think again. “The harder you try to plan out your future the worse it ends up turning out for you. There are way too many variables in this, it’s a totally unpredictable thing, and you never know. Many times I've sat down and said 'well I can see this and this happening' and thinking I'd be in a certain place a year from now, and finding out it was the complete opposite.” 

All that remains is for the two to step in the cage, and though Franklin will be counting on his typically fastidious pre-fight preparation, you can be sure he’ll be asking for some help from the most important team member of all. “At this point the rest is in God's hands. I think that helps put me in some sort of inward calm, and I know that everything’s going to be OK.”