While Rich Franklin is getting ready for UFC 148, his mind may be far, far in the future.
In an interview with MMAWeekly Radio, Franklin spoke about his good recovery from a shoulder injury and his workout in preparation for the upcoming middleweight fight against Cung Le. Not only does he feel good about the fight, but the move back down to middleweight seems to be a welcome change, especially after a history of moving between middleweight and light heavyweight.
“You don’t really have a home,” Franklin says. “Your body is constantly having to adjust to different weights, so this should help stabilize things for me. Hopefully, this is where I’ll finish my career.”
To Franklin, that career still includes a run for the middleweight title:
That would be my Cinderella story. It would be great. I had one chance at that and fighting in my hometown and all that kind of stuff to regain my title, swing and a miss, strike one. I moved up to 205 and never really quite put things together at 205, swing and a miss, strike two. So hopefully this would be the way to end it.
While Franklin’s title fight won’t happen anytime soon, UFC 148 is likely to be a similar rallying point for a few of the biggest names in UFC who are returning from losses, including the light heavyweight winner between Forrest Griffin and Tito Ortiz. The same may be said for Franklin’s opponent, Cung Le, who is coming off of his November ’11 loss to Wanderlei Silva.
Perhaps the greater question beyond a simple victory in this fight, the one that will determine Franklin’s potential route to a middleweight title fight, is whether or not the UFC will be interested in investing in it. According to Franklin, the organization proved once already that they had little interest in keeping him at 185. But given his work at 205, as hard to decipher as it may be (he has won 3-of-6 light heavyweight fights since his middleweight victory over Travis Lutter in 2008), a move to a more comfortable weight is promising.
Moreover, a rematch against Anderson Silva could prove interesting, especially with the implicit understanding that Franklin has Silva penciled in as part of that title run. It’s hard to argue that Franklin can win a rematch, but if Franklin’s performance from now on is satisfactory enough, more than a few fans may favorably receive the bout.
Regardless, this makes the upcoming Franklin vs. Le fight that much more important. It’ll likely be a good stand-up match between the strikers, regardless of the victor. But if it proves to be an exciting victory for Franklin, his Cinderella story may happen yet.
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