Yes friends, if you haven’t heard, it appears as though the legendary career of Randy “The Natural” Couture is coming to a halt, as the former champ announced this week that his upcoming April 30th bout with Lyoto Machida is likely going to be his last. Really, everyone knew that day would finally arrive for the 47 year-old-phenomenon, and fittingly Couture’s final fight has all the makings of a good one.
Why? Aside from the whole ‘one of the greatest fighters of all time bit,’ as we mentioned earlier in the week, it wasn’t long ago people did a mental bow in their head every time they mentioned the name Machida. Of course, Machida didn’t look so mythical in his first tilt with “Shogun” Rua, got KTFO in the rematch, and then didn’t look very impressive in his split decision loss to “Rampage” Jackson. So what’s “The Dragon” learned from all this? (Thanks to MMA Bay for the quote)
“The biggest thing I learned is you constantly need to be changing and you constantly need to be evolving. At that moment, a lot of people think, ‘Oh, if it’s working, don’t change anything.’ But I realize now when you’re winning, when you’re the champion, that’s when you constantly have to be evolving because everybody’s gunning for you. Whether you’re winning or losing, you’ve constantly got to be changing.”
Yup, clearly guys were starting to figure out Machida’s shtick. The former champ also noted that he’s extremely honored to be fighting Couture, and is thrilled to get that fight down on his resume. Now it just remains to be seen if it will be recorded as a win. To bet on the bout head here.