The Natural: A Retrospective

---

Tracey Lesetar: The next time you watch Jet Li’s 2003 film “Cradle 2 the Grave,” make sure to look for Randy Couture in the cagefighting scene. He is credited as “Fighter #8.” For a moment in film history, he was cutting his teeth as an on-screen MMA henchman. And this is how I will remember Randy Couture; not just as a bellwether fighter in the MMA industry but truly a jack of all trades and someone who was always reinventing himself. From his military career in the 1980s to being an alternate on the U.S. Olympic wrestling team and becoming a fledgling action star, “The Natural” has shown us many faces. And as the industry has evolved, we have most often found him at the helm, aging and yet still defeating the many younger fighters that were thrown at him. Now, at 47 years old, he has the most UFC title reigns of anyone in the sport and was the first man to hold UFC championship titles in two different weight divisions. An entrepreneur, coach, champion and father, there is very little that Randy Couture hasn’t done. He is a unique brand of sportsman that comes along once or twice in a generation.

Mike Sloan: There is one moment of his career that sticks out more than the rest, and it came after he was battered and stopped by Josh Barnett back at UFC 36. At the post-fight press conference, Couture was so genuine and classy in defeat. He made no excuses and explained exactly why he lost. He said he made a mistake and Josh took advantage; Barnett was the better man that night. While he spoke, Couture was obviously disappointed that he lost his UFC heavyweight title, but he appeared genuinely happy for Barnett to have become the UFC champion. Couture heaped a mountain of praise onto Barnett and said, “If it’s time for me to pass the torch onto to a younger fighter, I’m happy to be giving it to a man like Josh Barnett. He deserves it, and I’m sure he’ll carry on the tradition of being a great champion for a long time” -- or something along those lines. Never in my life have I ever witnessed a man take defeat with such class, and right there, I knew that Couture, whether he would win another title or not, was a one of a kind fighter and man. His attitude after that loss spoke volumes of the type of legend he’d eventually become.

Greg Savage: Couture was one of the first big stars of our sport, and his persona has grown so much since that May night in 1997 when he made his MMA debut as a spry 33-year-old. This was about a year or so before I started covering the sport as a journalist, and I was little more than a casual observer when he took to the cage against Tony Halme. The big group of friends that had gathered to watch UFC 13 were there to see local favorite David “Tank” Abbott fight young phenom Vitor Belfort, but it was “Randy from Oregon” who we all ended up rooting for. He looked like he jumped off a logging truck right into the Octagon. Couture was relentless in his attack and notched a pair of wins to take home the UFC’s heavyweight tournament championship. That same group of friends was on hand five months later when “Randy from Oregon” jumped back into the cage to face Belfort, who was 1997’s equivalent of Jon Jones -- the unbeatable uber-champion. Couture grinded him into pebbles and secured a title shot against heavyweight champion Maurice Smith. And, in typical Couture fashion, he battled Smith tooth and nail and earned a majority decision and his first of six UFC titles. Little did I know that spring night that nearly 14 years later he would retire from the sport as one of the most accomplished and well-loved competitors to have ever graced MMA’s stage.

Jordan Breen: It is unfair to sum up Randy Couture in a paragraph. His fingerprints are everywhere in MMA. He taught us to reconsider the impact of age in prizefighting and sports. He shed light on the efficacy of clinch work and dirty boxing. In a sport where “We’re gonna stand and bang” still passes for preparation, Couture brought true depth to tactics, strategy and game planning in MMA. He became a quintessential ambassador for a sport desperate for one. He helped entrench the “anything can happen” ethos of the MMA community with repeated upset performances and remains a standard for multi-divisional success. His first bout with Pedro Rizzo established the gold standard for five-round wars. He even usurped the Bible itself in his ability to popularize the adage “iron sharpens iron.” And yet, he was hardly a lawfully good superhero: he butted heads with Zuffa and the UFC in a way no star ever has publicly, left RAW Team and Team Quest on less-than-ideal terms, had a string of high-profile failed marriages and held on to his career too long for many people’s liking. He’s a complicated and difficult character study, and it is no surprise given how deeply he’s embedded in modern MMA’s DNA.