UFC Hall of Famer Randy Couture will grace the cover of the UFC Magazine’s next release in August. The issue coincides with Couture’s heavyweight tilt against boxing legend James Toney at UFC 118 on August 28th in Boston, MA.
Payout Perspective:
The last we heard regarding the magazine is that subscriptions and ad interest were increasing. This was a few months ago, so the situation may have changed. However, I doubt that in a way given the UFC’s latest hot streak and the use of draws like Liddell, Rampage and Couture on issues.
The Couture/Toney fight is actually at heavyweight.
Ive always heard it was at 205 to force Toney to come into the fight in shape.
Correction, TONEY is saying the fight is at heavyweight. We’ll see when it’s made official I suppose although it is on the wikipedia event poster (I know, I know, roll your eyes at me for citing wikipedia, Lord knows I just did). No weight named at UFC.com though. I doubt the UFC cares what kind of shape Toney is in, as it seems this is an attempt to make an example out of him. I also doubt it would matter, Toney would most likely just be fat and cut a lot of weight, making him slower and potentially giving him an excuse if he loses the fight.
Here’s the poster at: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/0d/UFC_118_Edgar_vs_Penn_2_poster.jpg
It says “heavyweight showdown”, but the UFC probably made posters for either scenario so who knows.
I’d originally said LHW because that’s what Randy has been fighting for the last few fights, but here’s the latest from the Toney camp:
http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/news?slug=ys-mmaweek071210
I really don’t think it matters where they fight, either. I’ll be interested to see whether Couture tries to push him up against the cage and control him, or whether he just double legs into side control and pops into mount right away. I think he’s playing with fire if he tries to clinch and dirty box along the cage, because all it takes is an instant for separation and he’ll have some wicked upper cuts coming his way.
I would bet on the latter strategy for Couture, Kelsey. He is a master game-planner and I seriously doubt he’ll try and take any unnecessary risks whatsoever. I think Couture has plans beyond this fight and is aware that a loss would hurt his momentum, as well as fuel the boxing vs. mma fire with a win for boxing.