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Coleman vs. Couture — Better Late Than Never
By Zach Arnold | January 18, 2010
By Alan Conceicao
This week saw the announcement that the on-again-off-again light heavyweight clash of the last 12 years, Bernard Hopkins/Roy Jones II, was back on for April of this year. (http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/boxing/news/story?id=4824611) Featuring a knockout bonus intended to give the majority of the money to the man who pushes hardest for an early end to the fight, the contract is reminiscent of MMA’s win and stoppage bonuses, widely used by all major promotions in the US as the norm. The promotion for this upcoming bout feels quite familiar to another MMA event that is just rounding the corner.
Over a decade late itself, Mark Coleman’s fight with Randy Couture at UFC 109 has been criticized in many circles, largely due to the age of the combatants (a combined 91 years) and the fear of over-reliance on aging names. The use of aging fighters is a long practice in pro boxing: Larry Holmes fought until he was 50. Sugar Ray Leonard’s retirements were punchlines. Robert Duran’s career spanned 4 decades. Along with the greats, even less successful boxers had long post prime careers – crowd favorite Livingstone Bramble’s career went on 15 years longer than it likely needed to. Former titlists and contenders like Herbie Hide, Keith Holmes, Steve Forbes, and Omar Weis find themselves reappearing on club level boxing shows all over the world. While these fights can often be sad, they are an expected evil; Men with names will attempt to profit off of them as long as possible, because no matter how hard boxing may be on them, it is often much easier to enter the ring and take a beating for $4,000-$5,000 than it is to transition into functioning employees in a world you’ve not been a part of for years. And there are tragedies: One only needs utter the name “Greg Page” to remember that.
MMA is little different in this respect: Couture, at 46, is clearly in the twilight of his career, and yet sees himself still soldiering on until his 50th birthday. Coleman, a well aged 45, doesn’t seem to admit any light at the end of the tunnel for him either. In fact, only one fighting member of the UFC’s Hall of Fame has officially retired – Royce Gracie. And his retirement only came after a 1 year suspension for steroid use following his K-1 Dynamite USA bout in 2007. Dan Severn, Ken Shamrock, and Chuck Liddell have all flirted with retirement, but continue to fight. Along with them; Kevin Randleman, Gary Goodridge, Tank Abbott, Carlos Newton, Kazushi Sakuraba, Dan Henderson, Frank Shamrock, Pat Miletich, Frank Shamrock, Pat Smith, and many others continue to compete as professional MMA fighters at a variety of levels in the sport. Mark Kerr and Don Frye both seem to have announced retirement, but had also done so previously and with fights in the last 12 months, comebacks would hardly be shocking for either. Their ability to compete will be secondary to their ability to sell tickets.
In this case, there is not even separation of the two with regards to value in their respective sports. Couture would seem to be a top ten light heavyweight and while Coleman isn’t remotely near being ranked, he did give Shogun a fairly hard run for his money roughly a year ago, and possesses a quick and powerful shot that he’ll likely have until he’s 50. In fact, its been suggested on UFC TV that the winner of this fight could be a potential title challenger. If the winner is Couture, its hard to imagine that not being the case. Hopkins’ bout with Roy Jones may be even more important in a ratings sense. Hopkins, a partner with Golden Boy Entertainment (the owner of Ring Magazine), still holds the “linear” light heavyweight title he won against Antonio Tarver several years ago in Atlantic City. While he’s taken on no competitors in over a year and his last fight was against a middleweight (Kelly Pavlik), he has not lost the belt in the ring. Roy Jones may not be ranked at 175 by almost anyone following his brutal KO loss to Danny Green in Australia, but he’s still a dangerous fighter with extremely fast hands. Both fights also open with fairly heavy action on the side of the older man: Couture generally runs around -400 as a favorite, and Bernard Hopkins opened at -350 in Vegas.
With all the similarities that are negative, there are certainly positives. These are still fights that people want to see; perhaps not as many as would have seen it in 1999 in the case of Hopkins/Jones, but they’re compelling fights from a historical perspective that can change the narrative of either man’s career. A win for Jones would give him what for many would be his first “linear” championship at light heavyweight well after his prime and back up the first win he picked up over 15 years ago. The vision of Coleman’s career would also radically change: From burnt out by 2002 to reborn with the drop in weight, Coleman would be seen by many casual fans as a legitimate title challenger to the winner of Shogun/Machida II and perhaps be his single greatest non-tournament win. Hopkins and Couture simply need to win in order to stay relevant enough to generate major fights with younger, but lesser known and appreciated competition within their own division (either the defensively styled Machida or the defensively styled Dawson respectively). In the end, these men are going to fight someone. Isn’t it best for all of us if they fight each other?
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 21 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
“While he’s taken on no competitors in over a year and his last fight was against a middleweight (Kelly Pavlik)”
Incorrect. Hopkins’ last fight was a twelve round decision over Enrique Ornelas on December 2. And I don’t know if I would call the KAYO loss of Jones to Danny Green as “devastating”, considering that Jones lost via TKO because he just simply didn’t punch back when Green was unloading on him. And the knockdown didn’t land flush at all. Jones was fine after the fight.
Other than all of that, that was a very well written article.
You’re right: Completely forgot about the Ornelas win.
Actually, I was thinking about this in the shower this morning: Hopkins shouldn’t be the linear champ either. He was the last one due to losing it to Calzaghe, but I don’t think that his own company handed him back that strap (thank god).
I wouldn’t mind the UFC having the Couture/Coleman fight on a Spike card. I just don’t think it’s PPV worthy.
I wish Randy Couture, Mark Coleman, Roy Jones Jr., and Bernard Hopkins would all retire.
All of their skills are diminishing. They likely will do more harm to their careers at this point. Not to mention take unneeded head shots.
So better late than never? More like better never than late….
In a dream world, they’d all ride off into the sunset and have grapes fed to them while they watch their investments grow. Instead, they’re going to fight, because that’s what happens. If they’re gonna fight, I’d rather see Couture/Coleman than Couture/Rampage or Coleman/Rashad.
That is true. At least Coleman and Couture’s reflexes are both relatively on the same level. And when I say same level, I mean like non-existant.
45;
Why should Hopkins retire? He still wins fights, and against good fighters to boot. I agree about Couture, Jones, and Coleman, but Hopkins is still good. Let him fight!
Off topic thought:
Seeing how the whole Conan-Leno fiasco is playing out (among other things) and the mounting evidence of the utter incompetence of the execs over at NBC, is anyone thinking this network is not really one you’d be excited about being attached to if you were the UFC?
They’re the worst rated of the big 4 networks (all under the masterful leadership of Zucker), slated to lose $200m on the Olympics (Ebersol), completely mishandled the Leno-Conan situation (and cost themselves some serious $$) and burned up a lot of goodwill with the viewing public.
I have to think they’ll take the (dumb) stance that they don’t want to do anything “risky” (see: anything new, anything that hasn’t been done before) and lose more money by giving the UFC any kind of primetime/priority placement.
The big hope would be that, if the Comcast merger takes place, they will clean house and get rid of these clowns and bring in people who aren’t stuck in the mindset of 15 years ago and will take some calculated risks. The current management/executives with NBC are not the type of people I’d want to be hitching my wagon to though.
“Why should Hopkins retire? He still wins fights, and against good fighters to boot. I agree about Couture, Jones, and Coleman, but Hopkins is still good. Let him fight!”
You are right in that out of the 4, Hopkins is the most fit to fight.
I guess I just don’t see the sport in watching a 40+ year old athlete taking unnecessary shots to the head. And with Hopkins specifically, he is flat out ducking Chad Dawson. That isn’t the Hopkins we all knew from the past. And why is he ducking him? Because his skills have diminished enough that he knows he doesn’t have a chance of winning. But I do see your point of view as well.
The Gaijin,
It once again goes to show people that just because a potential deal is available, doesn’t mean it should be taken if the terms are not right. TV Executives only care about ratings, and have little care for the sports themselves.
Heck, this past post season for baseball made me want to puke. I’m Yankees fan (as I’ve said countless times before). And they completely got an unfair advantage. The schedule was spread out so much that they were able to only use 3 pitchers throughout the entire playoff run.
Why was the schedule spread out so much? Because FOX wanted to maximize ratings. So here they took a sport that is use to playing almost everyday for 6 months… And gave them more off time then playing time when it came to the playoffs. It was horrible to say the least.
We saw how bad the deal was for EliteXC when they signed on with Showtime and CBS. Those companies milked them dry and only cared about content. They also have their nose in the matchmaking side of things way too much with Scott Coker.
There is something to be said for having “partners” instead of just a “distrubution channel” that wants control over a product they completely do not understand.
Call me crazy, but I think that the failure of Late Night on NBC has little to do with the potential of the UFC making it on the network. I think people are hunting for a story there even though there isn’t one.
It was more aimed at “does the UFC want to get involved with these idiots?”, than it was, “the UFC’s never going to make it onto network tv!”
That last part was more of an aside that TV execs rarely want to do anything that hasn’t worked for them before, so based on all of the other boners they’ve been pulling, I wondered if they’d be willing to “risk” having an “unknown quantity” on their network. That being said, they are getting crushed in the 18-49 demographics all over the board, so maybe they’ll swing for the fences on something like the UFC.
But going back to my original point – see how they made a major clusterf*ck with the Tonight Show and think about how much meddling/fighting/BS they’d try to pull with Dana and see where that would end up. It will basically go back to Dana saying he won’t go on network without anything less than 110% control, and they don’t seem to like to play that way.
The Tonight Show or Heroes’ failure/success is irrelevant though to the base issues; NBC isn’t likely to change demands about production for the UFC, nor is the impasse in money likely to be breached anytime soon, regardless of who takes over or stays in power after all this. I think trying to link the Versus deal to NBC when the merger isn’t even through yet is baseless speculation. That opinion is supported by the almost universal admission by people following the “story” that there’s no evidence out there of it.
Not too much to add, just want to say that’s a really fine editorial, there are too few of them about mma!
Looking forward to seeing Lesnar’s appearance on SC – hopefully he’ll be able to set the record straight and we’ll get a much clearer picture of the HW scene going forward.
There’s a huge difference between boxers fighting past their prime and MMA fighters fighting past their prime. Boxers made millions and were either idiots with their money (Tyson), got conned by a manager (Bowe), or just can’t say no (Holyfield) so it’s hard to feel sympathy for them. But MMA fighters in their 40s spent their athletic prime (generally ’94-’00) in the era before big pay days so of course they’re going to try to cash in on the sport now that it’s a goldmine. I doubt Pat Smith and Mark Kerr get paid that great on small shows, but they didn’t have the opportunity to put away much money in the days when UFC tournament winners only got 60 Grand and sponsorships were a fraction of what they are today. So I don’t see how you can blame any MMA fighter coming back in while pay days are so good. It’s sad to see Kerr weight 300 flabby pounds and see Frye take brain trauma he shouldn’t be taking, but they’ve dedicated their lives to fighting so they can’t be expected to be able to go work at a desk job now just because they’re 40.
But what you cannot excuse is UFC promoting this as a $45 main event and claiming on national television this fight is for title contention. There would be nothing wrong with this as a nostalgia moment (preferably curtain-jerking) because they are big names of the pre-boom years and their fight 10 years ago would have been awesome. But there is no excuse for this being taken seriously. It should be nothing more than a quick “thank you for your service” pay day afterthought. And if either man does get a title shot due to this it will be laughable.
Bowe, Mercer, Holyfield, etc. may have made millions and spent millions +1, bu they are in the same position as MMA fighters from the earlier eras that still fight (which is to say; broke). It will happen no matter how much money MMA fighters make. Chuck Liddell is rich too, I hear – he invested in real estate. As you may have heard, its not working out that well either.
Is it good? I’m not arguing that it is. A smart fighter gets enough money to start a new life and gets out while he has brain cells. That *never* happens.
Oh of course. There’s also the “sports addiction” factor that every athlete goes to that’s probably a distant #2 in the issue below finances. Brett Favre has to be in immense pain from all of the punishment he has taken over 18 years, he has more money than he’ll ever be able to spend, but he’s still playing. And by every account it is because he’s addicted to the rush of the game. But for every Favre there are twice as many guys who ruined their health because they had no financial choice. And there would be 20 times that number if the NFL wasn’t so strict with who they let play.
And I don’t doubt Coleman and others in MMA have made stupid financial decisions as well (you can see Randy’s stupid decision fighting in Strikeforce…) but Coleman burning through the PRIDE Grand Prix $250,000 purse and Mike Tyson spending $100 million dollars in less than a decade are night and day examples. And Chuck & Tito being millionaires who can’t say no in MMA are such a tiny minority, joined by who? Just maybe Sakuraba?
Millionaires in MMA are a tiny minority, and most are in their athletic prime. The only other recent millionaire I can think of on their level *period* is Matt Hughes – he’s still fighting.
I mean, list retired top end fighters. I mean, ANY retired top end historical fighters. You got Royce, you got Rickson, you got Bas. That’s not a long list. Almost everyone else is either still fighting, just retired, or is pro wrestling.
Alan,
Did Royce Gracie ever OFFICIALLY retire? I never heard of him actually retiring after his second fight against Sakuraba.
I know Mo Smith came back a few years ago, and hasn’t fought since June 2008. Pat Miletich retired a SECOND time. But that was merely a year and a month ago, so who knows? Oleg Taktarov hasn’t fought since April 2008.
Miletich was actively seeking a UFC contract within in the last 6 months. Taktarov has moved onto motion pictures, but never officially re-retired from MMA. Mo Smith would likely fight again if money appeared. They, like Tank Abbott, are example of guys ready to go whenever…so long as the money is right.
“so long as the money is right.”
Some fighters would probably do it for a nickelbag of weed.