UFC118 – Couture says he wanted Toney to have the complete MMA experience
Randy Couture talked about his approach to taking out boxing legend James Toney in the Octagon, explaining a good wrestler or good grappler would have easily avoided it:
“The first thing I noticed when I got into the cage and kind of settled in was he was wearing those things on his feet. You don’t see a lot of guys shoot that shot – because it’s pretty easy to counter. You shoot from a longer distance away. You have to get pretty low. A good grappler or a good wrestler is going to step out of that.”
“You’re catching his heel, and hopefully you get some pressure on his knee and force him to his butt. I didn’t think James would have a counter or an answer to that. You don’t see that shot very often in MMA simply because good grapplers counter it pretty easily.”
“A huge thing when you’re shooting a low single is you’re used to doing it against wrestlers, and we’re wearing shoes. It’s something to grip. When he had those things on his feet, I was like, ‘Oh, this is going to be better. I have something I can grip. If it gets dicey or he tries to step out of it, I’ve got something I can hang onto other than his sweaty foot.’”
“Exactly how I saw it in my head. I had no illusion of standing around and trading any kind of blows with James. I had to pull out the old low single from college and dust it off. The whole camp I was working on the low single because it’s pretty hard to counter-punch that. You have to be within arm’s length to really hit a double-leg. If I’m within arm’s length, guess what. He’s got arms he can hit with me. I thought I could get to his feet and put him on his butt.”
“I didn’t feel like he demonstrated any real solid skills once he hit his butt. He didn’t close his guard. He didn’t protect himself well. I was able to maneuver and get to mount pretty easily. From mount, I knew he had no idea. You could hear his corner yelling at him, ‘Trap his arm and roll.’ I could hear what they were trying to get him to do. I think he was more interested in trying to punch me in the head. I kind of wanted James to have the complete mixed-martial-arts experience.”
When asked if he would ever like to meet Toney in the boxing ring, Couture respectfully declined stating that he believed Toney would knock him out in the first round.
On what Toney said to him after the fight, Couture stated:
“He just said, ‘good job,’ and that’s it. At least I think that’s what he said.”
It’s been revealed that Couture will now return to the light heavyweight division for the last 4 fights on his current contract.
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