At 47-years-old, Randy “the Natural” Couture is still competing in mixed martial arts at the highest level possible in the UFC and is currently scheduled to take on professional boxer (mixed martial artist?), James “Lights Out” Toney.
Think about that for a second.
The man is 47-years-old and even though he gets very little credit from many of the fans for being able to compete with the top level talent in either the Light Heavyweight or the Heavyweight divisions, the reality is that Randy Couture could easily clean out about 90% of the fighters in the largest and most prestigious fighting organization in the world.
Maybe I’m wrong here, but Randy Couture absolutely impresses me.
In part, I guess it’s because he gives us old guys hope, but mainly it’s because of his tremendous heart and competitive spirit. It’s hard not to respect Randy Couture and what he has done for the sport of MMA.
In a recent interview with MMAFighting.com, Randy Couture offered up some of his own observations and critiques of UFC Middleweight champion, Anderson “the Spider” Silva.
In case you missed it, Silva narrowly escaped with a fifth-round victory against Chael Sonnen at UFC 117, exposing many weaknesses in his fighting style—something that many were starting to believe did not exist.
“I think Anderson needs to look at the spirit in which he’s competing,” Couture said.
“It appears to me that he’s been doing his best not to lose. Instead of doing what he did early on and competing to win, and taking guys out, he’s doing enough now to get by, be successful and keep winning.
“Eventually that kind of fighting attitude will catch up with you. You have to kind of go out, risk it and lay it all on the line. That’s the way it is. I think Anderson has strayed away from that a little bit, but I don’t think he’s getting old at all. I think he’s still a tremendous athlete with amazing ability. You know, there were some pretty interesting things he still demonstrated in the fight against Sonnen even though most of the fight, he spent on his back and got dominated.
“I’ve said all along, the guy that’s going to give Anderson Silva fits is the guy with that tenacious wrestling style. Danny Henderson had that ability, stole a round from Anderson when they fought, and kind of strayed away from that game plan and got to slinging gloves with Anderson, which I think is always a bad idea.
“I’ve said a number of times when asked if I’d like to fight Anderson that that would be a great fight. I think that I’d do well against him. He’s a very graceful, amazing athlete, and one of the best guys in our sport. Those are definitely the kind of guys you want to fight.”
Well, this is one MMA Sportswriter that would love nothing more than to watch the Natural battle the Spider.
But the big question is—at 47-years-old, can Couture actually win?
Let’s hope we get to find out.
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