Randy Couture has announced in a letter to Dana White that he will be vacating the UFC Heavyweight title and walking away from his current UFC contract and remaining two fights left on that contract. The Fight Network's Brian Knapp reported the following quote from "The Natural":

I appreciate this opportunity the sport of MMA and the UFC has given me,” the UFC Hall-of-Famer said. “However, I’m tired of swimming upstream at this stage with the management of the UFC. It only makes sense at this point in my career to fight Fedor Emelianenko, and since he’s now signed with another organization, I feel like it’s time to resign and focus on my other endeavours.”

The initial source of the announcement didn't have much to say other than that Randy Couture had resigned his position within the UFC. Once the announcement hit the Internet, multiple news outlets began to churn the wheels to get a quote from Randy Couture himself as well as Dana White regarding the huge loss to the UFC. Josh Gross over at Sherdog was able to get a phone interview with the former UFC HW champ while he was in South Africa filming "The Scorpion King -- Rise of the Akkadian":

The motivation for the decision is two-fold," he continued. "I know Fedor (Emelianenko) just signed with another organization and that's the only real fight that makes sense for me at 44 years old as the heavyweight champion of the UFC. That's the fight I wanted and if that can't happen it doesn't make sense for me to compete with all these other guys. And then obviously that's not going to happen now. And, two, I'm tired of being taken advantage of, played as the nice guy and basically swimming against the current with the management of the UFC. I have a lot of other things going on in my life that I'm doing just fine with. I don't need the problems. I don't feel like I get the respect I deserve from the organization, and that's motivation No. 2 for the letter of resignation that was sent today."

This is probably the single biggest quote in the entire year of mixed martial arts because of its implications on the UFC, the biggest MMA promotion in the world. It definitely implies that there is a problem with the UFC management giving Randy Couture the respect he deserves and in a physical form, the amount of money he deserves to be spearheading efforts for their promotion to sell seats at big events. There is much to analyze with the news coming out today, so I'm going to just dive right into the reactions, the analysis of Randy's statement, and the implications this all has on the UFC and MMA in general.

Dana White failed to get the best

The #1 reason that Randy Couture is now on the path to pursuing a small acting career until his UFC contract is officially over is because Dana White was unable to work with those "crazy" Russians as he so fondly referred them as. Dana White stated that it was "inevitable" that we would see Fedor Emelianenko in the UFC. Randy Couture seemed to be waiting in the wings of the UFC to finally fight the Russian. What happened? Why didn't it materialize?

Fedor smartly negotiated deals with multiple suitors, trying to take advantage of his stature in the MMA world. He was considered to be one of the best pound-for-pound fighters in the world, if not the best. HIs reputation for having one of the most diverse skillsets and unbelievably quick transition games in MMA was convincing enough to hear offers from the UFC hitting the 1.8-2.0 million dollar mark per fight. Where would Randy Couture stack up against the "Last Emperor" as he is commonly referred to as in Japan? Nobody will know anytime soon due to the endless negotiating and the unwillingness of White to give into the demands of the Russian management team of Finkelstein and Echteld.

All we know now is that the UFC failed to sign Fedor. M-1 was bought by a mystery "American Entertainment Company" and has signed Fedor to a reported $10 million dollar deal. The only way that the UFC could hang their heads high is if the "American Entertainment Company" happened to be Zuffa. It's very doubtful.

Randy Couture, for months, has been hinting at the UFC management that a fight against Fedor would be a "dream" and a matchup that he would definitely be looking forward to fighting. The UFC still could not get it done. For MMA fans, disappointment has rattled the MMA community as their hopes of seeing the super fight in Couture vs. Emelianenko just won't be happening anytime soon.

There are still possibilities after Randy Couture's contract expires with the UFC in 9 months. Once he's out of the contract, he will be able to negotiate with other organizations and will be able to garner a much bigger salary. Most likely, M-1 will be very interested in giving him what he wants to put on probably the biggest MMA bout this world has ever seen as far as PPV numbers go. I believe this will be the agenda for Couture. I'm sure he will do some acting here and there, but legitimately, he is going to stay in the business of MMA for a long time and probably fight one last super fight to get his huge payday.

Couture's pay derived from a lack of respect

That sums up what Couture was stating as one of the reasons as to why he decided to leave the UFC. His lacking pay that did not equal that of the other high profile fighters in the UFC who were title holders was seen as a lack of respect by the UFC's management. Was he wrong in assuming that he wasn't being paid enough? I'm not so sure, but we can do some comparative analysis to determine at least some grounds for the argument. Couture stated:

All us athletes are all pretty tightly intertwined,” he said. “You hear what other guys were paid signing bonuses and what other guys were paid on the record and off the record with bonuses. I’ve heard Chuck’s numbers. Tito’s numbers. Hughes’ numbers. Quinton’s numbers. Cro Cop, Wanderlei. I heard what they were offering Fedor, and it’s insulting.”

For reference, let's take a look at Liddell, Ortiz, Hughes, Jackson, CroCop, and Silva's last fight numbers and compare those to Randy Couture's last purse:

* Denotes that UFC 75 fight was not used due to non-disclosed salaries from a London event.

This is roughly the salaries that were reported by the various commissions involved in each of these fighter's last battles. Comparatively, you can make the case that Randy Couture was getting a big piece of the shaft in dealing with the UFC, but he wasn't overly getting hosed on the deal. Another interesting note is that Antonio Nogueira made nearly 210k in his win over Heath Herring, which is very close to Couture's salary without any UFC title and he wasn't a current PRIDE title holder either. The two biggest names that pop out are Chuck Liddell and Mirko "CroCop" Filipovic. To be clear on the table, I added if the fighter was receiving PPV bonuses based on buys. Those are purely by rumor since the UFC does not disclose that information. Couture, Liddell, Ortiz, and Hughes are almost certainly getting some type of draw money from the PPV figures. Ortiz and Liddell, in particular, probably gain much of their income from that aspect of their purses. It's even quite possibly that they gross over a million dollars per performance. With that said, how does this all compare to Couture's pay?

Comparatively, Liddell is literally on the same playing field with the only different being that he sports a slightly better record and has wins over Randy Couture. Both fighters have acted as ambassadors to the sport. Both have seemingly beaten some of the best in the business and overcame odds to win. Both fighters are the face of the UFC and MMA in North America, and they are also the most recognizable MMA figures in MMA, period. But does Randy Couture have the same drawing power that Chuck Liddell has? RIght now, I think he does, especially after Liddell's recent losses. I think you can make a serious argument that Couture's numbers should be higher. Ortiz isn't even half the fighter he used to be, yet his contract gives him impressive pay with the pay-per-view draw numbers. He is a master hyper though and actually does deserve the pay-per-view buys deal because believe it or not, he brings in fans. Couture does the same nowadays. People want to see the 44 years old young Randy Couture step into the Octagon and impress some more.

As for the salaries of the former PRIDE fighters, I would simply throw those out. Those figures are all based on the hype that was the PRIDE vs. UFC debate. It was always the assumption that PRIDE was a better organization. Yeah, yeah, I can see it now, tons of people bitching about that statement. Why would the salaries be higher for former PRIDE fighters then? Because they were trying to give them what they thought they were worth, or at least they did give them what they were willing to pay for overhyped talent. The fighters ended up not doing so well, and now the UFC will suffer paying them for a few more events. If Mirko decided to come back after his deal was up, you better believe he would have a substantially smaller contract.

His argument is definitely justified if you look at the figures. He definitely deserves more pay from the UFC brass and seemed to be tired of going against the UFC management in regards to his pay. As Kim Couture has stated in the past, people used to step all over Randy Couture and make money off of his name. Those times are behind us now, and I believe Randy Couture and Kim Couture as partners in the Couture name will be making some smart decisions regarding his pay if he chooses to come back to the UFC or head to another organization to take on the Russia's Drago, Fedor Emelianenko.

Stick it to the Man

In the end, Randy Couture stuck it to the man. He'd had enough of the lack of respect from the UFC and was obviously fairly disappointed that he would not be able to fight Fedor Emelianenko in the cage of the UFC. At 44 years of age, he's past his prime and probably wanted to get his huge payday and go out on a high note by fighting Fedor Emelianenko and having a great chance at possibly giving the Russian his first legitimate loss that wasn't via an illegal elbow. Instead, he leaves the UFC while on top with no chance of fighting Fedor Emelianenko with the UFC due to Dana White's mistakes or unwillingness to break on demands. He also leaves the UFC showing off a bitter realization that the UFC may be treating fighters in an unpleasant manner and payment figures aren't at the level they should be. Dana states that Couture has left before and came back, but he wasn't taking parting shots at the organization in his previous retirement. Get ready for some damage control and possibly some more departures as the MMA world begins to expand with more and more promotions. The coming months may be very key for the UFC to remain a stable organization, you never know what could come from this.

**UPDATE**
Also, in light of the recent events, White has publicly blasted Internet MMA sites for spreading salary figure rumors. Dana, you are only making a fool of yourself. Maybe the Russians were that demanding. You underestimated the demand to see Couture vs. Emelianenko, and that's why the outlandish outcry, get over it. Blaming sites for inaccurate figures? NSAC discloses all of their figures along with the fact the Randy Couture probably talked to every one of those fighters he mentioned. I will say that I am seriously getting tired of these tirades by Dana White, and it isn't looking good for him. He's insulting the very fanbase that literally popularized MMA on the Internet. With all of the credible sources out there in the industry, bad numbers usually are not the case. Absolutely an idiotic move by the President of Unprofessionals.