Background check: Randy ‘The Natural’ Couture

Randy Couture was born on June 22nd 1963 in Everett, Washington. He is 6ft1in and weighs in at 205lbs with a reach of 75 inches. Randy was an NCAA division 1 all American wrestler, he also was a 3 time alternate for the Olympic wrestling team. He also served 6 years in the US army. He is well versed in Greco Roman wrestling and his style of fighting is clinch/dirty boxing and wrestling. Randy started competing in MMA in 1997 and is still active today with a record of 18-10(7ko, 3sub).

Randy’s first professional MMA bout was way back in May 1997 at UFC 13 where he took part in the four man Heavyweight tournament held by the organization. His first opponent of the night was against Tony Halme who was 100 pounds heavier than Couture. Randy dominated the fight ending with a rear naked choke in less than 60 seconds. His second opponent was against Steven Graham, who also had a weight advantage on Randy, in the finals of the UFC event. Randy took a TKO win over the larger man 3:30 seconds in to the first round. Since then Randy has gone on to become the 2 time UFC Light Heavyweight champ, 2 time UFC Heavyweight champ, the UFC interim LHW champ and was the UFC 13 HW tournament winner, Providing some brilliant moments along the way. He fought Chuck Liddell in an amazing trilogy of fights which saw Chuck take two of the fights by KO, and Randy taking one by TKO. He has beaten Vitor Belfort twice by TKO, Kevin Randleman by TKO, Gabriel Gonzaga by TKO and most recently; Mark Coleman by submission among others.

Now 46 and still competing Randy has opened his own MMA training centre, Xtreme Couture, and has received over his long career such awards as Most outstanding fighter of the year (2003), most valuable fighter of the year(2007), fight of the year 2001 for his bout against Rizzo and again in 2007 when he dominated Tim Sylvia to regain the UFC heavyweight belt. Randy is a UFC hall of famer, the oldest man to win a title UFC history (43years 255days), the most UFC championship bouts and title reigns in the organizations history at 15 and 6 respectively.

Randy ‘The Natural’ Couture will no doubt go down as one of the best fighters of all time, and one of my personal favorites, for his great heart and determination which have seen him overcome the greatest of challenges.

Some information sourced from Wikipedia.