The Shrine

This is the schedule of things at the moment.

Current UFC champion Randy Couture is not fighting Interim Champion Nogueira, rather he is fighting PPV buy drawing Brock Lesnar. Currently the UFC is negotiating with Fedor Emelianenko's party to get a fight between him and Couture once Randy has re-established himself after defeating Lesnar.

Personally, I would be most interested in seeing Randy vs. Nog out of the way before anything else, but I understand the marketing here. Randy is most likely to defeat Lesnar, but Nog is most likely to defeat Randy; and Randy vs. Fedor would be the fight of the century assuming Randy wins his fight in November vs. Lesnar. Lesnar also pulls in a lot of non-MMA fans due to his celebrity status. Of course, this shows that UFC is more about the entertainment side than the sporting side as well; not a very respectable thing to do with an MMA promotion. Lesnar has a 1-1 record in the UFC; he has a decision victory and a 90 second submission loss; yet Lesnar is getting to challenge the champion.

Or, instead of writing a summary, where he probably got his info: http://sherdog.com/news/news/couture-ba ... fold-14261

Randy's back? But his movie career is just taking off with Scorpion King 2! :-)

Haha, has anyone actually watched that one?

I think that Couture's ducking Fedor personally; he was very against the UFC and then changed his mind right after seeing Fedor majorly outclassing and destroying Sylvia in a very short period of time. Right now they say that they'll get Fedor, but I wouldn't be surprised if they offered a contract that wouldn't be in the best interests of Fedor (who also has a commitment to his fans in Japan, his career in Sambo, and has access to high money fights anywhere in the world).

I don't think Randy wants any part of Fedor, he probably thought he could beat him before he saw Affliction Banned. Hiding in UFC is a good way of avoiding Fedor while still being able to say you're in the largest private promotion.

I would really like to believe that he will fight Brock, and then Fedor; but UFC is really looking to be an entertainment company, not a real sporting organization. Hopefully Affliction stays afloat, that was an absolutely fantastic show, getting many of the best heavyweights in the world to compete on one card. Of course, something along the lines of Pride's GP is what I would still like to see.

All professional sports organizations are entertainment companies first - that's what makes them money.

The other articles up at Sherdog give Couture's stated reason for going back to the UFC: he doesn't want to squander the remainder of his good fighting years in a courtroom. He met with Fedor last month, and thinks that going through the UFC is the fastest way to a Fedor fight.

I can't disprove your theory, Seeker, but it's certainly not what Couture has stated, and what he's said makes sense. There's also the fact that Couture made his name by not ducking fights and seeking out the best opponents.

I can't prove my theory either, it is actually more of a thought than something I really believe. There were people joking about how Couture is probably reconsidering his UFC contract after seeing the Fedor fight. From what I understand, there was a court date to decide whether his contract was up July 19th or not; and people were confident he'd be able to fight as a free agent by the end of the year.

It looks like it's possible that Lorenzo Fertitta pulled the reigns in on Dana White, and that Randy and Fedor are both dealing with him. Randy's goal seems to be to embarrass Brock Lesnar before taking on Fedor.