Couture on His Fate

Watch two video clips featuring Randy Couture from the past week and you’ll get two different perspectives: talking to MMA Live, the 47-year-old was non-committal about his future in fighting, saying only that “I don’t see myself making another run at the title.” But in an interview with RawVegas.tv, he indicated he’d match up well with either Lyoto Machida or Mauricio Rua.

There couldn’t have been more than a few days between quotes. What gives?

Fighting brings out a lot of contradictory emotions in athletes. Frank Shamrock was notoriously unreliable: prior to the Tito Ortiz fight in 1999, he said he was “going on a run”; instead, he fought only twice in the proceeding six years. Later, he said he’d be fighting for another decade; he retired over the summer. Now you see why managers are so pervasive.

Couture’s problem comes down to the same curiosity that afflicts every prizefighter: when you’re taking your stage bow, you wonder if you couldn’t keep going. Maybe Couture won’t be satisfied unless he knows for certain he can’t compete with the current crop of 205ers. The temptation to stick your hand on the burner is sometimes too great to ignore.

I enjoy watching Couture compete. He has one of the most unique stories in all of sports. But wouldn’t it be refreshing to see a champion go out on a high note for a change? Isn’t there a lot of residual goodwill around an athlete who wasn’t carried out on a stretcher? If Couture’s future is in acting or product endorsements, there’s a much better vibe that goes along with being thought of as a winner than as someone who stuck around too long.

Beating James Toney was a perfect finish: non-competitive, sure, but a resonant punctuation to the “rivalry” between boxing and MMA. Couture deserved to be the guy to put a stamp on that. He shouldn’t look back.