Some people may want to look at Saturday night’s UFC 118 fight between Randy Couture and James Toney as representative of something far bigger than either individual.
They may see the fight as a battle between two sports: One, mixed martial arts, which lacks history but has exploded in popularity over the past few years; the other, boxing, which has been a huge part of the U.S. sports scene for a century and is clinging to relevance as the younger audience seems interested in it only for the one or two biggest fights per year
Whether or not MMA is having an adverse effect on boxing’s future, there is a natural rivalry between the two sports among promoters, fighters and fans.
` The Couture-Toney battle at UFC’s first event in Boston at the T.D. Garden features two aging gunslingers with a slew of world titles on their résumé in what is easily the highest-profile fight of its kind thus far in the sport’s history.
But while Toney, fans and media have tried to push the fight’s big-picture significance, Couture is mentally blocking out the noise.
“It’s just another fight,” said Couture, 47. “Everyone else may say something else. I’ve just got an opponent who presents some interesting problems.”
On paper, virtually every potential advantage favors Couture. They are fighting under rules that he has 13 years of experience in fighting and training for. They are in his venue, the cage. Couture knows how to maneuver in it while Toney’s experience in knowing how to trap people in corners and cutting off a boxing ring will have to be greatly adapted. Toney has never fought MMA. And a pro boxing stance is one of the worst possible stances when it comes to avoiding a takedown. Plus, while Couture has almost no chance to win if it becomes a boxing match, he has trained for more than a decade in boxing. Toney has trained only a few months in wrestling and submissions.
“I think that’s what a lot of boxers, I think in general, when they look at MMA, fail to understand,” he said. “With the takedowns and the punching and the boxing clinch work that takes place in mixed martial arts, you have to change your stance. You have to kind of change your fighting style a little bit in a pure boxing perspective.”
Because of that, Couture is going in as a 7-to-1 favorite. But it is a fight Couture can lose. The one variable that favors Toney is MMA’s four-ounce, fingerless gloves, which are significantly smaller than boxing gloves. If Toney, one of boxing’s hardest hitters, lands a good shot, it will be with more power, thus increasing the likelihood of the early knockout he’ll probably need if he has any chance to win.
You have to look no further than the last match of this type, on June 13, 2009, when former UFC heavyweight champion, 33-year-old Tim Sylvia met then 48-year-old Ray Mercer, who 18 years earlier held one of alphabet soup boxing world heavyweight title belts. Both men stood, went for a punch at the same time, Mercer’s landed first, and Sylvia was knocked out, in a fight that lasted all of nine seconds.
“Tim had good success in MMA as a stand-up fighter and made a mistake thinking he could stand with Ray Mercer, an Olympic gold medalist,” said Couture. “I’m under no such illusion.”
Couture sees the fight as kind of an extension of his start in the sport in 1997. When he broke in, he was a pure wrestler testing his skill in his sport against fighters from other disciplines, before MMA evolved into a sport where fighters trained at everything.
“When I was younger, the public thought the heavyweight boxing champion of the world was the baddest man on the planet,” he recalled. “Coming from a wrestling background, we thought differently. The majority of fights go to the ground. The skills you learn in boxing aren’t very helpful when you’re on your back. You talk to law enforcement officers about fighting, and they’ll tell you the last guy you wanted to encounter in a fight is a wrestler.”
Couture doesn’t expect any big surprises when it comes to how the fight will go. Toney needs to keep it standing long enough to connect with a good shot. If he’s taken down, he’s likely to be toast, unless he’s progressed quickly in his training.
“Conditioning is not going to be to his advantage,” Couture said.
The fight is at heavyweight. Couture’s weight in recent days has been hovering around 215-216 pounds, which is about the same as where he’d be if he was fighting in MMA as a light heavyweight, except without cutting water on the last day to make weight.
“At first, I was told we would do it at a 220-pound catchweight,” said Couture. “But his side said they didn’t want to be held to a weight limit, which was fine by me.”
This fight nearly happened in late 2006. Toney was making noise and was in at least preliminary talks with Zuffa about a boxer-vs.-MMA match.
This was during the period Couture had his brief retirement after losing to Chuck Liddell, before coming out of retirement to win his record fifth championship in the match that will likely end up defining his legacy. He was all for coming out of retirement to fight Toney, but negotiations fell through on the other end. The idea of the fight disappeared until Toney started pushing again about wanting to do an MMA fight late last year.
Couture brings an 18-10 record, a record Toney has made fun of in the buildup, acting like it shows how weak MMA is when a Hall of Famer has that kind of a record. Certainly that sounds unimpressive next to Toney’s boxing record of 72-6-3 with two no-contests. But Couture’s record is probably the single most misleading in the history of the sport, given that 18 of his 28 opponents were world champions during their career and 16 of the fights were title matches. Unlike a padded boxing record, aside from Couture’s first two fights and his most recent win in February over a past-his-prime Mark Coleman, every fight he’s had was against someone who was at or near top level at the time the fight took place, and his five UFC titles are a mark no other fighter has come close to.
If there is a significant number to question with Couture, it’s not his record, but his year of birth. He was seemingly on borrowed time from when he debuted 13 years ago as an older wrestler, but he defied age in a way nobody in the sport’s history has ever done, and likely few will ever do.
“I don’t know how much longer I’m going,” he said. “I’ve got three more fights. I’m looking for more movie parts. I’m making the transition from fighting to acting and the complete transition is probably going to happen sooner than later.”
Couture is one of the stars of the movie, “The Expendables,” the Sylvester Stallone action pic that has been No. 1 at the box office the past two weeks. There has been a saying in boxing about how fighters coming back from doing a movie usually show up flat. There are recent MMA examples, such as Quinton Jackson coming back rusty against Rashad Evans after doing “The A Team,” and even Cung Le getting tired in the third round of the first Scott Smith fight and getting knocked out.
“I don’t think it’s a factor,” said Couture, who, because of the proximity to the fight, has not been on the road in recent weeks promoting the movie. “This was my eighth movie and I‘ve never had a problem. I’ve had a 10-week training camp, two weeks longer than usual. I had my coaches and training partners with me on the set.”
