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Exclusive: Couture Talks UFC Resignation

Thursday, October 11, 2007
by Josh Gross ([email protected])

Randy Couture (Pictures), the face of the Ultimate Fighting Championship and one of mixed martial arts most revered fighters, notified the UFC via fax from South Africa at 11 o'clock Thursday morning that he has chosen to resign from the UFC, "The Natural" confirmed with Sherdog.com.

"I sent the letter of resignation to the UFC today, resigning not only from my position in the company as a commentator and as an ambassador, but also as the heavyweight champion," Couture said over the phone from South Africa, where he is currently filming a movie.

"The motivation for the decision is two-fold," he continued. "I know Fedor (Emelianenko) just signed with another organization and that's the only real fight that makes sense for me at 44 years old as the heavyweight champion of the UFC. That's the fight I wanted and if that can't happen it doesn't make sense for me to compete with all these other guys. And then obviously that's not going to happen now. And, two, I'm tired of being taken advantage of, played as the nice guy and basically swimming against the current with the management of the UFC. I have a lot of other things going on in my life that I'm doing just fine with. I don't need the problems. I don't feel like I get the respect I deserve from the organization, and that's motivation No. 2 for the letter of resignation that was sent today."


All past discussion I might have partaken in regarding the future of the UFC heavyweight division is hereby retracted, rendered null and void, burnt to the ground, and salted so that nothing else can ever grow there again.

HOLY

SHIT.


SB - The heavyweight forums are in rare form today about Coutures resignation. i peeked my head in, and EVERY post but 1 on the first page was about it
 
The Couture resignation, the Fedor to M-1, and PRIDE announced *officially* that there will never be a live PRIDE show again.

Biiiiiiiig day in MMA.
 
BACON:
Where did your sig come from?

It's a collection of words I plucked from the life-stream. Something to the same effect has probably been uttered countless times over the course of history, but as far as I know, I'm the only one to put it that way.





As far as Randy's resignation, Good for him. Bad for UFC.
 
I'm just surprised he wasn't treated well. Everyone bitches about the way the UFC treats the little guys, but how they protect their stars or whatever. Anyway, hopefully this will cause some shakeup and maybe the UFC will open up for interpromotional fights. Here's hoping.

In other news, WTF is the deal with the Armenia thing? Bacon brought it up and I haven't heard an answer yet.

Also, Carnal, anyone ever actually know who that is in you avatar? And have you read the Satanic Bible?
 
Poked my head into the HW's briefly myself. Opinions seem to be sharply devided. I, myself, am inclined to take Couture's resignation letter at face value: the one big thing that he had left to do in MMA is taking on Fedor, and the UFC couldn't provide that for him.

The money, respect, and "anciliary activities" stuff might have all played into it, but Couture came out of retirement and retook the championship to prove that he could do it, defended it to prove that it wasn't a fluke, and with Fedor going to M-1, there wasn't much left for him. A fight against a floundering Cro Cop, whupping up on Tim Sylvia again... or MY OWN PERSONAL DREAM FIGHT OF COUTURE VS. NOGUEIRA.

That one will never come to pass, now.

Pardon me while I go cry myself to sleep.
 
“I’m not surprised at all by Randy’s decision. I talked to Randy several weeks ago and he said that if he couldn’t fight Fedor, then he has nothing left to prove in the sport of mixed martial arts.

He has been doing a lot of acting, and I know he is in South Africa right now filming a movie. I think it’s a great move for Randy’s acting career to retire from fighting while he is on top.

As we all know, Randy retired before. The landscape in MMA changes every day. So when he is ready to come out of retirement again, he is still under contract with me, and I’m ready to promote him.”

Dana's quote on the UFC home page
 
Way to spin the first part of Couture's letter while ignoring the second there, Dana.

ARRRRGGHHH!
 
There's nothing stopping Randy from signing a one-fight deal with M-1. He might have to wait until his UFC contract is up, but the fight still might happen.

Randy is the man.
 
There's nothing stopping Randy from signing a one-fight deal with M-1. He might have to wait until his UFC contract is up, but the fight still might happen.

Randy is the man.

Yeah... the rest of the Sherdog article mentioned that he's in limbo for the next 9 months because of his current UFC contract. Maybe M-1 will risk a one fight deal to let him go after Fedor. Maybe Couture hasn't burnt his bridges and can "unretire" again to the UFC if he chooses to. Maybe.

Where the hell can you watch a ******* M-1 fight in the States? CAN you get an M-1 fight in the States?

Damn it all....
 
A LOT of people talking shit about randy in the hvy wts. God, there's a lot of stupidity in there...be careful, it might be catching
 
I hate Dana White with a passion. He just embodies what is wrong with MMA.

I'm not a fan of UFC, or PRIDE, Hero's, anything. I'm a fan of MMA. I just want to see the best fighters in the world fight each other. I also hate that because of politics we aren't able to see these fights.
 
From what I read, M-1 is under new ownership. Now that they have a name like "FEDOR" to market with, I would imagine they could pull a PPV deal. No telling who he'll be fighting though.
 
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