Randy Couture Talks Fighting Fedor

Written by: Mat Houchens

Tagged with: Affliction 2, Couture vs Fedor, fedor emelianenko, Fedor Next Fight, randy couture, Randy Couture Next Fight, Randy UFC Contract, Randy vs Fedor

Wednesday, August 13, 2008, 13:52

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Sports Illustrated had the chance to talk with Randy Couture regarding his current battles with the UFC and a fight against the WAMMA Heavyweight Champion, Fedor Emelianenko. Couture discussed a lot of things in this interview.

On his contract status:

Well, the language in [my UFC] contract is pretty clear. It’s 18 months or four fights and the 18 months expired on July 19, so we’re in a 30-day grace period for negotiating or re-negotiating with the UFC. If they find a way to make the Fedor fight happen, I’ll be all over it, but I don’t really see that happening realistically. The non-compete clause expires on Oct. 10, a year from when I resigned, and so I’ll be able to go back to work commentating and working with the other promotions and getting back into the business of MMA. At times it’s frustrating but for the most part things work out the way they’re supposed to work out. If it’s supposed to be settled it will be settled. My entire life has been that way. Things have a tendency to work out exactly the way they’re supposed to work out so I just have to be patient.

On Fedor’s fight against Sylvia:

Obviously I didn’t beat Sylvia in 36 seconds. I did have a flashback when he knocked him down and got on his back. I was like, oh this looks oddly familiar. He was able to finish the choke and get the tap. He was very impressive. He’s very explosive and very quick and once he had Tim hurt he jumped on him fast. So, I’m excited to see how I do. I think it looks good. Sooner or later we’re going to make it happen. In some way, shape or form, in some production somewhere. I know there are obviously a lot of people that would be interested in participating in that fight, the UFC included. We’ll see how it all pans out. I’m confident we’ll get it done.

Randy takes some time to talk about his future in MMA as well:

I can’t place a limit on myself. I entered this thing 11 years ago taking it one fight at a time and its gotten me this far. I’m just going to take this thing one fight at a time and evaluate my performance and training and how I feel physically as I go along. Could there be more? I certainly hope there’s more because I love to fight, but I’m just going to look to make the Fedor fight happen and then we’ll evaluate how that goes and how I feel and what all the options are after and see what happens.

Randy vs Fedor is one of the most anticipated fights of the future. The fan favorite not being clear, the fight could lead to great anticipation so it will be nice to see how the fight will go down. Under what organization, when, where, etc. One thing’s pretty certain, it won’t happen in 2008 even though the non-compete ends on October 10th. Unless the Fedor injury is all front to set up the main event for Affliction 2 Day of Reckoning to be Randy vs Fedor. That would just be mind blowing and isn’t very likely.

I think we can look to a February fight between Randy and Fedor and most likely on an Affliction fight card.

You can read more about this interview over at Sports Illustrated.