Randy Couture: One of The Greatest MMA Fighters

Randy Couture is one of the greatest fighters in the MMA.  His career has been a one and every so often he comes out of retirement for a fight or two.   He has had his highs and his lows, but you can be sure to expect some more big things out of him before he completely done.  To really understand the context of what kind of fighter Randy Couture's is, you need to understand where he has been. 

When Randy was younger he was called a few different nicknames.  They included "Captain America", and "The Natural".  He was born in his hometown of Lynnwood Washington and has been learning the art of fighting almost all of his life.  He came into the UFC back in 1997 during UFC 13.    During that tournament Randy impressed the world with his victories over both Steven Graham and Tony Halme.  Five months later he would be taking a shot at the heavyweight contender, Vitor Belfort, at UFC 15.  Randy was 35 during this time and Vitor was only 19.  Belfort was highly favored to win but Couture ended up TKO'ing his opponent and taking over the title.

Because of his win over Belfort, Randy earned the right to compete in UFC Japan against Maurice Smith for the Heavyweight title.  There was no clear winner in the match, but Couture ended up winning by decision.  This didn't last too long though, because his title was stripped from him because of a dispute between the UFC and Semaphore Entertainment Group.  This was no problem for Couture though, and he ended up retaking his title from Kevin Randlemen in 2000.

After the TKO against Randlemen, Randy Couture went to the Rings competition and suffered a defeat by Valentin Overeem but recouped and won the heavyweight title bout against Pedro Rizzo.  Rizzo beat up Couture's legs pretty bad, but it wasn't enough to put him down.  Randy retained his title over the next three years until in 2003 he was knocked off by Josh Barnett in UFC 36.  The win was tainted though, as Barnett would later test positive for anabolic steroids.

Later on in November of that same year, Couture would lose again and this time to Ricco Rodriguez in UFC 39.  After this loss, however, things turned out in favor of Couture.  The then lightweight champion, Tito Ortiz, wanted to fight someone to defend his title but had come to terms with Chuck Liddell to never fight him.  This left an opening for Couture to fight Liddell if wanted to, so he took the offer.  He had to drop weight for the gig, but did so willingly.  Randy brought down Chuck in the third round and became the only UFC fighter to ever win a championship in two different weight classes.  Once he had done this, he now had the opportunity (at 40) to fight Ortiz.  It was expected that this would likely be a bad loss for him and he would retire soon after but it didn't go that way.  Randy took Ortiz to the fifth round and won by decision.  Couture, as always, showed respect to his opponent and showed his maturity in the way he handled each and every fight, especially that one.