Randy Couture – A Fighters’ Tribute at LinesMaker

When UFC Hall of Famer Randy Cou­ture announced his retire­ment, effec­tive after his UFC 129 bout against Lyoto Machida, the trib­utes came pour­ing in, and right­fully so. But while fans and media obvi­ously have their own view of “The Nat­ural”, hear­ing the impact he had on the careers of his peers car­ries a much dif­fer­ent weight.

So here is a col­lec­tion of thoughts from the men who have walked the same road he has…

ALAN BELCHER – mid­dleweight con­tender
Randy Cou­ture is like a super hero to me. He’s a man that just keeps going and never gets slowed down by any ele­ments. My per­spec­tive is dif­fer­ent than some­one who trains with Randy on a weekly basis or per­son­ally knows him though. I don’t know his per­son­al­ity, I just know the icon. I would be star struck to meet him, and although I have trained at his gym on sev­eral occa­sions hop­ing to meet him, I still have not. I believe Randy is dri­ven by com­pe­ti­tion and pas­sion for com­bat and I hope that I can leave a frac­tion of the legacy he is leaving.

TIM CREDEUR – mid­dleweight prospect
After TUF 7 I moved to Vegas to train with For­rest Grif­fin, and he took me to Xtreme Cou­ture to train. Dur­ing my time at Randy’s Acad­emy I sparred, drilled, wres­tled, laughed and talked fight­ing with Randy many times. He was a multiple-time world cham­pion and I was a nobody, but he treated me like an equal and changed my entire out­look on the sport and on what it is to be a leg­end. I con­sider myself blessed to have expe­ri­enced a true leg­end of our sport in such an amaz­ing capacity.

EVAN DUNHAM – light­weight con­tender
Randy has always been and will always be an inspi­ra­tion to myself and all fight­ers who strive to be the best. Randy has achieved so much in his career, and he more than deserves his place as a leg­end and pio­neer of the sport.

FRANKIE EDGAR – UFC light­weight cham­pion
Randy has been some­one for fight­ers like myself and oth­ers to look up to for such a long time, and he will be greatly missed in the Octa­gon. He set the bar high for future fight­ers, not only in the way he com­peted, but in the way he car­ried him­self. I wish Randy the best in his retirement.

YVES EDWARDS – light­weight pio­neer
To say Randy is inspi­ra­tional would be an under­state­ment to me. You hear the phrase “before his time” so much in this world, but Randy was well past his prime like the third or fourth time that he became a world cham­pion. I could only imag­ine how dom­i­nant he would have been if he was the same age as every­one else. There should be a spe­cial place in the Hall of Fame for a guy like that.

JAKE ELLENBERGER – wel­ter­weight con­tender
Randy Cou­ture is not a mixed mar­tial artist; Randy Cou­ture IS mixed mar­tial arts. He is not only an extra­or­di­nary leader and role model, but he is a pio­neer and a found­ing father of our sport. It was a plea­sure and an honor to have worked with such a classy guy.

JON FITCH – for­mer world title chal­lenger
Randy’s career has taught me that hard work and game plan­ning are more impor­tant than tal­ent and ath­leti­cism. See­ing him com­pete at a high level for so long gives me the hope that I will be com­pet­ing when I am close to 50 as well.

BRIAN FOSTER – wel­ter­weight prospect
I think of that dude and only one word comes to mind: “Super­man”. He has done what every ath­lete dreams of, and he is undoubt­edly the tough­est man I have ever seen at his age by far. If I can do half of what Randy has done in this sport then I’d be mak­ing a lot of peo­ple proud. My words to Randy: way to stick it out and hang on for as long as you did. I hope to do the same if pos­si­ble. Fight­ing is some­thing that we are pas­sion­ate about and it just comes “Nat­ural”. You’re the man.

LEONARD GARCIA – feath­er­weight con­tender
Randy was and always will be the man in the UFC. He was some­one who, no mat­ter how many times he would fall, he would get back up and reach the top of the moun­tain again and again.

TJ GRANT – wel­ter­weight prospect
Randy was the ulti­mate under­dog. His wins over Chuck (Lid­dell) and Tito (Ortiz) gave me goose­bumps. No one gave him a shot and he pulled it off. Every­one thought it was his time to hang it up four years ago but he proved us all wrong. He was a com­peti­tor, a role model and one of the great­est all-time fighters.

FORREST GRIFFIN – For­mer UFC light heavy­weight cham­pion
I’ve heard this fella Randy Couture’s a pretty good fighter. Well, I sup­pose that’s true. But Randy’s also one of the nicest peo­ple in the sport, and I have proof. We were shar­ing a hotel room one time, strictly pla­tonic, two beds and every­thing, I swear. Randy had a 6am flight because he’s crazy like that – seize the day and all that s**t. I, of course, opted for the more sen­si­ble noon­ish flight. I woke to see Randy sneak­ing around the room using his cell phone as a light to pack his bags. That’s right, Randy didn’t want to wake sleep­ing beauty up. Think about how nice you have to be to not turn the lights on to make sure you got all your s**t. But that’s just Randy – con­sid­er­ate and always with a smile and a kind word. As far as him retir­ing goes, good, I was get­ting tired of get­ting beat up by a guy that was old enough to be my dad.

KENDALL GROVE – The Ulti­mate Fighter sea­son three win­ner
All I can say is that Randy was an inspi­ra­tion. The man rede­fined the sport in so many ways and I’m so happy I had the chance to train with him and be a part of his team. Thank you Cap­tain for always putting on a show.

CLAY GUIDA – light­weight con­tender
Randy Cou­ture is the def­i­n­i­tion of a true cham­pion. He made fans out of just about any­one that ever watched him com­pete and he showed what heart and sheer deter­mi­na­tion can accom­plish in the cage. Randy is also a huge sup­porter of the armed forces, as he served in the mil­i­tary out of col­lege, and he was a dom­i­nant wrestler who trans­ferred it to MMA and rev­o­lu­tion­ized the sport. He will be talked about in a pos­i­tive light for years. Randy Cou­ture is my HERO.

ED HERMAN – mid­dleweight prospect and for­mer train­ing part­ner
Randy was a huge inspi­ra­tion, and get­ting the oppor­tu­nity to be around him and train with him for the first five years of my career was huge in my growth in the sport. He took the extra time to work with me dur­ing and after prac­tices, and that was a big con­fi­dence boost because if he believed I had poten­tial, then I knew I could make it hap­pen. I was really lucky to get that oppor­tu­nity because I was just a punk kid com­ing off the streets. All I had was tough­ness, the kind you can’t teach, and I think I learned more from Randy than from any­one I’ve ever known. He made me see that any­thing you believe in and work hard enough for is possible.

MATT HUGHES – UFC Hall of Famer and two-time wel­ter­weight cham­pion
I’ve always mod­eled myself after Randy. He always came in ready and with a game plan. But prob­a­bly the biggest thing is what he said and how he talked. He always had good answers, and if it came out of Randy’s mouth then I would allow myself to say some­thing close to that.

ANTHONY JOHNSON – wel­ter­weight con­tender
Randy is the Leg­end of Leg­ends. No one will ever be able to do what Randy has done for the MMA com­mu­nity. He put smiles on the fans’ faces with his incred­i­ble heart and never say die attitude.

DEMETRIOUS JOHNSON – ban­tamweight con­tender
I think Randy Cou­ture is an awe­some mar­tial artist. He has shown the great things that can be done in this sport and I hope I can still be fight­ing at the age that he was. I will miss him fighting.

KYLE KINGSBURY – light heavy­weight prospect
The thing I respect most about Randy was his abil­ity to come back time and time again and win whether he was the under­dog, com­ing out of retire­ment, or fight­ing against a big­ger oppo­nent. The guy seemed like he didn’t age and it was a plea­sure to watch him.

DUANE “BANG” LUDWIG – wel­ter­weight vet­eran
Randy has raised the bar in so many areas that he has to be the all-time great­est mixed mar­tial artist.

CHRIS LYTLE – wel­ter­weight vet­eran
Randy has truly been the great­est fighter in the UFC. I really saw when he coached on TUF 4 that he had been the first per­son to truly incor­po­rate wrestling and box­ing and jiu-jitsu and had merged them into an entirely new dis­ci­pline. He took things to the next level. Before him, peo­ple were very good at one aspect and just tried to get by with the oth­ers. He helped change that. And his abil­ity to defeat great fight­ers after I thought his best days were behind him still baf­fles me. I don’t care if he came back in five years, I would never count him out. He’s very inspi­ra­tional and I know he will do the same in what­ever he does next. Thanks Randy.

DEMIAN MAIA – mid­dleweight con­tender
For me, Randy is the most inspi­ra­tional fighter in the UFC. He has proved that will is much big­ger than age when we talk about achiev­ing our dreans. He is a inspi­ra­tion not just for me and the MMA world, but also to every­one. Great dici­pline, hard-worker and also a very kind per­son – Randy is big­ger than the sport because he is an exam­ple for everybody.

CODY McKEN­ZIE – light­weight prospect
Randy is the man, he seems like a myth, and will always be a legend.

IGOR POKRAJAC – light heavy­weight vet­eran
Randy gave us many great fights and many good moments to remem­ber. I’m hon­ored to be one of the fight­ers that Randy has cor­nered. It was in San Diego on Ver­sus against James Irvin and I won it in style. After the fight, Randy told me “Good fight, stud,” and for me that was a moment to remem­ber. I think that it is a big deci­sion in the life of a fighter to retire after a great career and he has the sup­port and love of all MMA fans all over the world. Randy is the UFC and an icon to admire.

JORGE RIVERA – mid­dleweight vet­eran
Like just about every­one, I have a deep admi­ra­tion for Randy and all that he’s accom­plished both in and out of the cage. He’s a true war­rior and cham­pion as well as a spokesman and ambas­sador for all of MMA, and I’m grate­ful to have met him, learned from him and to have have watched him fight. Thank you Randy, you are the man.

DANIEL ROBERTS – wel­ter­weight prospect
Randy Cou­ture always put every­thing he had into all his fights, and when you do that, no mat­ter what his record says, he never lost a fight.

AMIR SADOLLAH – wel­ter­weight prospect
Randy Cou­ture is the type of fighter even cham­pi­ons seek to emu­late, and I’m glad I have the oppor­tu­nity to learn from him.

BRENDAN SCHAUB – heavy­weight con­tender
Randy is a guy I think every pro­fes­sional fighter looks up to. He’s best described as a pro’s pro and he does every­thing and any­thing to win. The first thing I learned in this game is to never count Randy out, no mat­ter who he’s fight­ing. And when some­one asks why? Because it’s RANDY! He’s showed what men­tal tough­ness is all about. He’s one of the greats.

AARON SIMPSON – mid­dleweight prospect
As a col­lege wrestler, I remem­ber Randy from his days of coach­ing at Ore­gon State Uni­ver­sity and his days on the Greco-Roman National Team, so when we all heard he was fight­ing in the UFC back then, it was big news. We all gath­ered around and had a party to view “one of ours” show­case our sport as a fighter. We all were proud to say we were wrestlers, basi­cally because Randy dom­i­nated so eas­ily. As his career grew and I moved into mixed mar­tial arts, I had one of the best role mod­els out there to look up to. His abil­ity to keep fight­ing well into his 40′s is an inspi­ra­tion to us guys who are get­ting close to that num­ber. I am and always have been and always will be a fan of Randy Cou­ture. He is the best.

RICK STORY – wel­ter­weight prospect
I just would like to show my appre­ci­a­tion to Randy Cou­ture by say­ing thank you for your com­mit­ment to the sport, paving a path for all oth­ers to fol­low. Peo­ple with the excuse that they are too old I just men­tion Randy Couture’s name to them.

BRAD TAVARES – mid­dleweight prospect
Randy has helped the sport become what it is today. I can remem­ber grow­ing up watch­ing his fights, and he is a great fighter, role model and person

MATT WIMAN – light­weight con­tender
I am a huge fan of Randy as a fighter and as a per­son. He is a great com­peti­tor and spokesman for the sport, though I didn’t like that he was bet­ter look­ing and had a more youth­ful body than me even being twice my age. I was sad to hear of his retire­ment, but I’m sure he has big­ger fish to fry. Randy will always be the man and I hope I’m as bad of a dude when I’m 47.

EDDIE WINELAND – for­mer WEC ban­tamweight cham­pion
Randy Cou­ture is “the man”. To be in your mid-forties and in that kind of shape, fight­ing men half your age, is absolutely amaz­ing. He’s a super nice guy and he deserves every­thing he gets because he worked so hard for it. I wish Randy all the best in the future and I hope it con­tin­ues to go up for him.

RANI YAHYA – feath­er­weight con­tender
Randy was the most spec­tac­u­lar fighter in MMA history.

 

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