"The Half-Guarded Truth"

By: Mike Coughlin

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"The All Too Ordinary Randy Couture"

Here's the thing about sunsets: they're spectacular. They really are something else. What's even better: they happen every day. Every single day this incredible, amazing, [insert your favorite adjective] event takes place and you probably don't really care because, well, it happens all the time. Repetition renders ordinary the incredible. Randy Couture has become a sunset. You know the story by now and you've heard it so many times you're probably sick of it: 46-year-old successful cage fighter. I don't know if you can tell a more compelling story in six words. But, it's old news and no one seems to care.

The UFC does a lot of things right, but the treatment of Randy Couture has been disappointing. His last fight - a competitive 15 minute war with one of the greatest heavyweights of all time in Rodrigo Nogueira - was relegated to being the main-event of the 2nd PPV of August. As such, while a million people paid to watch Anderson Silva fight, less than half that number paid to see Randy compete. That shouldn't be the case. One of the sport's most beloved figures, and one of ALL sports' most inspirational stories, shouldn't be a PPV afterthought. I don't care how many shows the UFC wanted to run, and how the schedule happened to fall: Randy deserved better.

Now, Couture is back, fighting Brandon Vera. On Spike TV. For free. A week before a PPV from Las Vegas is headlined by a guy he beat and a guy he trains. This isn't right. It doesn't matter how desensitized we are to Couture's story, we won't be someday. His final fights - and eventually we have to be witnessing his final fights, right? - should be meticulously catalogued for all time. Every single step he takes, every day of practice, should be recorded so that future generations can relive what we're all taking for granted. Wouldn't every baseball fan wish to have as much footage of Babe Ruth as possible? Don't football fans want more Jim Brown? Randy's story is one for the ages. Maybe 46-year-old MMArtists will be the wave of the future. If so, then Randy should be remembered as a trailblazer. But if this is ordinary in the future, it isn't now. All I see right now are MMArtists hitting their 40s and being punch drunk, literally drunk, or a combination of the two.

The sport is mainstream now. Heck, Brock Lesnar gets a virus and it becomes news on ESPN. The UFC has arrived. What Randy's doing should be the biggest story all weekend from here to the New York Times. Everyone should be talking about Randy, but no one is. And part of that blame lies with the UFC. I'll set aside the fact that he's fighting in the UK. British fans are great and they deserve a chance to see Randy. Big fights can happen overseas too (right, Buster Douglas?). But, Brandon Vera? That's the best we can do? For all we know, this is the last time Randy will ever fight and it might be against a guy who fought lost to Keith Jardine? There's nothing wrong with Vera, but he's hardly a larger than life name, someone you look at and say, "YEAH! RANDY'S FIGHTING THAT GUY! GO, RANDY, GO!" Instead, he's an average light heavyweight with a history of underperforming. That's the guy Randy's fighting? He goes from Lesnar to Nogueira to ... Vera?

Then they put it on free TV? Don't get me wrong, I like free things and a free Randy fight is cool, but shouldn't we have to pay for this? Shouldn't we almost want to pay to see Couture fight? Shouldn't he be involved in such an important fight, such a big deal with all kinds of attention, that the UFC would be crazy not to make us pay for it? Maybe that's the worst thing: this is such a ho-hum affair that you get a sense the UFC would have a hard time asking people to pay for it.

And just like last time, Randy's fight is the "other" show of the month. UFC 106 with Griffin and Ortiz (and until recently, Lesnar and Carwin) was always the BIG show of the month, the one that really counted. Couture-Vera? A nice little appetizer, something to tide you over a week until the important show takes place. A Randy Couture fight should be it's own seven course meal not an appetizer.

I get that some of this is Randy's own fault; he truly is a victim of his own success. He's been defying the rules of aging for so long that it's routine. We're used to seeing him buck the odds and come back for one last fight. He's become the boy who cried wolf. But eventually that kid gets eaten by the wolf (or something) and eventually Randy will stop fighting. The UFC should know this and they should make a bigger deal out of what he's doing. There is no excuse. The UK show didn't have a main-event? The UFC wanted to run two shows in August and November? Sorry, I don't care. You sacrifice a show or two for what Randy's doing, because it may never be done again. Fight fans are literally watching a living legend be turned into just another guy. That sucks. People are taking Randy for granted because the UFC is letting them do so.

A 46-year-old man is going to step inside a steel cage, wearing nothing but shorts and four-ounce gloves. He is going to competitively fight against a man fourteen years his junior. This may never happen again. This Saturday, something incredible, amazing, [insert your favorite adjective] will take place and no one seems to care. Like a sunset, Randy will simply fade away and be gone before anyone ever notices.

Mike Coughlin hosts Five Star Radio/TV. No one cares about that, but he kinda understands why.

Bonus feature: Watch Mike READ HIS OWN COLUMN~! Truly, the most self-serving endeavor in site history.