Randy Couture Update

by Michael Rome on Jul 21, 2008 6:06 PM EDT in News Comment 16 comments

Randy Couture spoke with Alex Marvez at the Affliction show, and told him that he expects a ruling on Zuffa's latest appeal this week.

The wording in the story is a little misleading though. The ruling they are expecting this week is on the status of Zuffa's emergency stay. If Couture wins that, it would then revert to a Texas court, which would rule on his contractual status. That order would probably come quickly, but both sides would appeal any loss in court, which means we will not be getting a final resolution any time soon.

This quote from Couture will surely start a whole new round of speculation:

"When, where, and with what promotion - we don't know....It could happen in UFC. We just don't know...In some way, shape or form, we're going to make it happen."

These legal battles sure are exhausting. Check out the whole video of the interview here.

Randy suggests here that if he loses the legal battle he is open to finishing out his contract with the UFC.

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Poor Randy

Just think…if he would have honored the contract like he was supposed to do…he wouldn’t have this problem right now….actually he wouldn’t even be thinking about trying to fight Fedor.

http://tharealness.wordpress.com/

by Tha Realness on Jul 21, 2008 6:52 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Not quite.

Only if he lost. You need to pay more attention.

by D.Capitated on Jul 21, 2008 8:22 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Didn’t anyone tell him not to talk about an ongoing legal proceeding?

by -Sam on Jul 21, 2008 6:59 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Good Lord. By the time Randy and Fedor fight, Randy’s going to be pretty much 50 years old…..

by Cmad77 on Jul 21, 2008 7:10 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

It’ll happen in the next year. If Dana is smart, he cuts Affliction off at the knees and does it in his promotion.

by Michael Rome on Jul 21, 2008 7:12 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Good point.

I can totally see Dana doing something like that. Part of that would mean he’d have to eat some of those words he said about Fedor in the past, but he’s already acknowledged Fedor’s destruction of Sylvia, his first real opponent in years. I still see Randy fighting in the UFC again. Randy’s best option is to fulfill his contract, and I’m sure all this court stuff will be dropped if Dana gets something concrete going with Fedor. If Randy continues to fight this, he’s just going to get older and eventually lose in the end anyway, considering he signed the contract initially, and he has a few fights left on it.

by pud333 on Jul 21, 2008 9:36 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Realistically...

...that won’t happen. Dana’s shown that he’s not interested in making money with other people. If Affliction ends up sticking around and EXC continues moving forward, he may eventually be forced to, but it won’t happen for a long time. Now that they’re number 1, they want to be #2, #3, #4, and all the rest down the line across the planet (Japan and its MMA fanbase apparently excluded). Anything else is failure on their part, which is basically what you would have to consider their work in Japan.

by D.Capitated on Jul 21, 2008 9:45 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

You're right.

Dana won’t work with another promotion. I’m talking about signing Fedor exclusively. Not working with Affliction or another rival promotion.

by pud333 on Jul 21, 2008 10:01 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Right. They can still do it, Fedor is not signed to Affliction, he is a free agent.

I believe he is going to make an effort. He has recently reached out to Randy, and Randy’s comments last night that it could happen in the UFC suggest Dana has told him that too. He can still offer Fedor the most money, he just has to bend on the issues of Sambo and a couple other things. It’s the right move at this point for business, he’d be an idiot now to let it happen in another promotion if this first show did well.

by Michael Rome on Jul 22, 2008 1:40 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

But....

...they don’t want to give into any of his demands. They want absolute control of Fedor and they want his image too, and there doesn’t seem to be any interest right now from Emelianenko to sign his life away. Not to mention the fact that he’s gonna probably want more guaranteed money than anyone in the company right from the get go.

by D.Capitated on Jul 22, 2008 7:58 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Randy should have taken his last fight and bounced, if that’s what he wanted. He could have taken the fight with Big Nog and then done as he pleased. Now it’s a mess. It can’t be good for his court proceedings that he was in the ring at Affliction doing hype work for a future fight with Fedor.

by Blackout612 on Jul 21, 2008 7:50 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Except for the champion's clause.

In which case that he beats Noguiera, he’d still be in legal limbo while it was thrown out, a la Jens Pulver.

by D.Capitated on Jul 21, 2008 8:25 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Well, it’d certainly make for a better case; if that portion of the contract was holding him hostage.

by Blackout612 on Jul 21, 2008 9:17 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Randy will just retire...again

I for one can’t see how Randy deserves a fight against Fedor. His record is just average, he has never been a dominate champion and he doesn’t even honor his contracts. Randy is not a challenge for Fedor. For that matter I don’t see him beating Fedor, Arlovski, Big Nog or even Werdum. To me all Randy has done for the last year is protect his record from one worse then 16 and 8.

by Tommy7 on Jul 21, 2008 10:46 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

I think the euphoria surrounding Couture “overcoming the odds” in his last handful of victories has mostly passed. But the fact remains that he is a very popular fighter and there stands to be a lot of money to be made from a fight with Fedor. Problem is, it’ll likely end up not being worth all that money.

by Blackout612 on Jul 21, 2008 11:29 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Why do we really care?

Randy stepped out on his contract. He has given many reasons as to why he stepped out, but basically he is not a man of his word. I don’t really care to see him fight again based on the fact that he is fickle or a “monkey see, monkey do” kind of person.

by lovingmma25 on Jul 22, 2008 11:23 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs