Dana White has scheduled a meeting with Randy Couture for November 20th to discuss his options, his fight offer to matchup with Antonio "Minotauro" Nogueira, and the future of the UFC Heavyweight Champion. I liken this whole series of events to that of an MMA fight. In round one, Randy Couture came out with his guns blazing, putting White in the standstill clinch with the announcement of his resignation from his contract with the UFC while he was in South Africa filing a prequel to the Scorpion King. Couture pummeled off some strikes in the clinch by throwing down some knowledge about the UFC's disrespect to him as an ambassador to the UFC, the facts that he did not receive a bonus after his match with Gabriel Gonzaga and was lied to about being one of the highest paid athletes on the UFC payroll, and his overall feeling that he was fed up with UFC's management. Round won by Couture early, but White escapes the defeat.
The UFC and Dana White came out in round 2 with a more tactical approach, picking apart the UFC Heavyweight Champion with peppering shots in what was perceived as Randy Couture's ironclad statements. The UFC held a press conference outlining the facts about their contracts, pay structure, what Randy Couture was paid, check stubs, and comments regarding Kim Couture's statement about Randy's promotional push by the UFC. Couture seemed to be unable to counter the hard-nosed facts that the UFC presented at the press conference. To top things, the UFC stifled Randy Couture's own press conference in which he put out his contract terms. Indirectly, the UFC's conference proved that either Kim Couture is bad at math, or Randy Couture underestimated how much he actually made from his fights.
We have now headed into the 3rd and final round. Couture and White are now circling each other with White having the small edge in the current negotiations. It's apparent that Couture may be seeing the errors of his facts that he had put out into the general MMA community regarding his contract. White's facts completely contradicted Couture and those of some of the mainstream media. The question can now be asked, who's going to win this battle of the big boys? Will the battle come out as a draw, or will one side legitimately win by decision? We'll take an in-depth look at the current situation, the possibilities, and what we can expect from the UFC and Randy Couture.
Win, Lose, or Draw
Who will come out on top in this matchup? White had some recent comments regarding the current situation that also tapped into the rumor that Randy Couture may be very close to signing a deal with HDNet Fights to put him into some type of management role. Here's the comment from Steve Cofield's podcast:
There’s an end game to this whole thing,” White said. “Randy Couture and I didn’t have a bad relationship. It was the complete opposite. I had nothing but respect for Randy. And you know me, if I don’t f***ing respect you, I’ll let you know it. I don’t know what the game is here.“
“Is he going somewhere else,” White pondered. “Did someone like (HDNet Fights owner Mark) Cuban or any of these other goofballs out there right now offer him an obscene amount of money? But I don’t think anyone is offering him money to fight because he can’t fight. He’s under contract to me, and he ain’t getting out of that contract. But he could retire and go work for someone else. Is that what the game is? That’s the only thing that makes sense to me.“
White makes the case that since Couture is still under contract to the UFC, Couture cannot fight anywhere else. This is one of the biggest issues that many fans including myself feel is the reason Couture is willing to sit down and talk. Adam Swift from MMAPayout wrote an article about the innards of Zuffa's contracts. One of the points was that if Couture retires, Zuffa can either suspend the contract if he decides to comeback, state that he fulfilled the contract, or accelerate the contract. If a fighter refuses to fulfill his contract, unwilling to fight, Zuffa can extend the contract indefinitely. This would cause Couture to be unable to fight for another organization until he either fights his last two fight, or retires from the sport. If he happens to have a vision of retiring and then coming out of retirement to fight for another promotion, Zuffa will still retain rights.
White seems to be in control, but Randy has some options. Couture has already stated his complaints about the UFC to the general public. White knows exactly what he needs to do to keep the UFC legend around. Randy could also flat out walk away from MMA without the possibility of fighting Fedor Emelianenko. He could retire and probably seek out a substantial salary from HDNet Fights as an ambassador to the promotion or in a managerial role. We could also see him in commentary roles as well which could be very lucrative for Couture. He owns his own chain of gyms which are very successful and his clothing line seems to be doing very well.
The best situation for the fans would be for Couture to defend his title against Antonio "Minotauro" Nogueira. If White and Couture can sit down and work out some type of restructure of his deal, we could see two more fights for Couture in the UFC, or have it restructured to get one last fight in the UFC. I imagine that Couture will want a good amount of money that will equal that of his stature in the UFC. He is the Heavyweight Champion of the UFC of the best MMA promotion in the world even though it seemed like he was an underdog in the Sylvia and Gonzaga fights. He had hinted at the fact that the UFC may have felt that he would simply be beaten in those fights. He now has a bargaining chip to at least garner a bit more money.
Who wins? If Randy and Dana work out a new deal, everybody wins. The UFC gains back a fighter who can draw big Pay-Per-View numbers and Couture should gain a bigger payday. The fans will also get to see a fairly good matchup between the granite chin and submission grappling of Antonio "Minotauro" Nogueira and the legend Randy Couture. If Randy decides to retire from the sport as a fighter, we lose one of the best fighters in the sport. It's a big loss to nearly everyone, but the UFC still has some talent in the heavyweight division to keep the division somewhat interesting. I don't see any way this can remain a stalemate unless Couture decides to try to fight this in court. From the inside looks into the contracts, Couture only really has a few choices. Either fight again, retire, or fight this in court in which it will cost a lot of money to mount a case. I don't see that happening. We will either all win on this, or we will all lose. What do you think? Can Couture make a move to give him the opportunity to fight again in another promotion? It doesn't look likely at this point.