Saturday night is expected to be the last time in the octagon for UFC legend Randy Couture, so expect the tributes to begin trickling in early this week and a flood to follow his fight with Lyoto Machida, win or lose. They are all deserved of course, even though plenty of them will focus on what he’s done, rather than what he might do.
What’s amazing is that despite all his accomplishments in the cage — championships and megafights among them — Couture could end up becoming one of the rare fighters who is more important to the sport in retirement than he was in action. That is a tall order, of course. Couture is and will forever be one of the seminal figures of early MMA, and was one of the few pioneers able to evolve from a singular style to favorably compete with the modern class of hybrid athletes.
His legacy is surely written in stone. He’s a multi-time, multi-division champion; he holds a UFC record by competing in 16 title fights; and he was one of the few early personalities that transcended into mainstream consciousness. So what can he do after he hangs up his gloves that he didn’t do before? He can be a voice for MMA, he can be an agent for change, he can offer thought-provoking perspective on the direction of the sport.