William Reardon’s Blog

Pink shorts? Well, they started white.

http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-spw-ufc13jan13,1,3219199.story

Randy Couture, a former Ultimate Fighting Championship title holder in two weight classes, has announced he is returning to competition to fight heavyweight champion Tim Sylvia in March.

Couture, 43, twice won the UFC’s heavyweight and light-heavyweight belts. He claims victories over current light-heavyweight champion Chuck Liddell and the division’s former champion, Tito Ortiz.

Couture (14-8) retired in February 2006, following a knockout loss at the hands of Liddell. He was inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame, yet later expressed some criticism of Sylvia’s “conservative” fighting style.

Sylvia (25-2) won a decision in November over Jeff Monson in a fight that was littered with booing by an Arco Arena crowd critical of the inaction.

“It’s hard to be around fighters and around this sport as much as I am and not want to compete,” Couture said in a statement released by UFC. “I just think that while I’m still physically capable of beating these guys and competing, it seems like the right time.”

The Sylvia-Couture fight will serve as the main event March 3 at UFC 68, which will take place at Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio. Former UFC champions Matt Hughes and Rich Franklin are also scheduled to fight on the card.

Randy retired after losing twice to Chuck Liddell in the light heavyweight division. The step back into the ring at the heavyweight class is a smart one. It never was a question of Randy being strong or skilled enough; Chuck was just too fast. His punches would fly in, delivering (I believe) the only two knockouts of Randy’s long career.

Some could attribute that to age (Randy retired in his early 40s, from a sport dominated by guys in their 20s), but then again, Chuck proves too fast for just about everyone. Sylvia doesn’t have a lot of speed himself, so Randy has a real shot at winning this.

I’ve never seen a UFC fight in person, and was seriously thinking this might be a fun one to fly out to Vegas for. Alas, it’s not in Sin City, but Columbus. People of Ohio, you lucky bastards.

This message was not brought to you by Xyience, but how can you have anything UFC related with a Xyience ad?

This entry was posted on Monday, January 15th, 2007 at 12:37 am and is filed under life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.