Randy Couture is still UFC Heavyweight Champion

December 30, 2007 – 11:18 am by fightlinker

I said it during the radio show: I’m tired of sucking Steve Cofield’s balls all the time, but damnit … he shows you what a good reporter with solid MMA knowledge and legitimate press credentials can do. The latest example of this is a one on one interview with Dana White right after UFC79. Go here to listen to the full 10 minute audio, but here’s the bit that interested me the most:

“Couture is still the heavyweight champion, he’s going to have to honor his contract or retire. And I expect him to honor it, he’s Captain America, he’s an honorable guy. He’s took over a half a million dollars in signing money and he’s got two fights with me. So this is in the lawyer’s hands now and we’ll see what happens.”

Yeah, I know … the title of this post made everything sound a lot more positive than the actual quote. Basically it sounds like Randy is remaining the champion for legal reasons more than any other reason … as Fedor revealed in an interview, being a champion in the UFC kinda sucks because it locks you into a bunch of way more restrictive clauses as to what you can or can’t do. So long as Randy’s the champion, they’ve got him in a full nelson tighter than the one Rich Clementi threw on Melvin Guillard.