Randy Couture isn’t surprised about the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s spat with Francis Ngannou given his own history of the promotion.
Ngannou exited the promotion as the heavyweight champion in January 2023 over a lengthy contract dispute. Couture, meanwhile, had a lengthy legal battle with the UFC in 2007, even publicly resigning for a brief period. Ngannou had fought for rights to simultaneously compete in boxing along with other stipulations like health insurance for fighters and an advocate to represent fighters at contract meetings.
Ngannou went on join rival promotion Professional Fighters League, where he will make his debut against the 2023 season heavyweight king Renan Ferreira on Oct. 18 in Saudi Arabia. Former UFC champ Israel Adesanya, who considers himself one of the first three Africa UFC champs along with Ngannou and Kamaru Usman, recently called out the promotion for trying to erase “The Predator’s” legacy.
And Couture isn’t surprised given the way his legacy was handled by the promotion as well. The former heavyweight champ and Hall of Famer has very few UFC-made highlights of him on YouTube today. Couture had been at odds with Dana White from the very beginning over ancillary rights. The promotion basically wanted fighters to hand over rights to their names and likenesses in perpetuity, which Couture wasn’t willing to do. While he managed to preserve his ancillary rights, he eventually parted ways with the promotion, also giving up his duties as an analyst. Couture has previously noted while he managed to hold on to his ancillary rights, the UFC made sure no other fighter ever would.
Speaking of the Ngannou situation, Couture recalled the promotion’s beefs with other former stars like Tito Ortiz, Chuck Liddell and Frank Shamrock. While Ortiz exited the UFC over a contract dispute, Liddell never got the lifetime position in the promotion he was allegedly promised by White, who has consistently dismissed Shamrock as someone ducking Ortiz. Couture claims it’s the promotion’s modus operandi that led to the class action lawsuit by more than 1,200 fighters.
“I’m not surprised at all,” Couture told Sportskeeda MMA. “They’ve done their best to try wash me out of the books as well. That’s how they treat anybody that doesn’t go along with their good old boys club. That’s the way they handle it and if you’re in the house with Dana, that’s how you’re gonna be treated. That’s just the way it is. So I’m not surprised at all. And there will be many others coming into the same boat, be a persona non grata as I am and have been. Because I held their feet over the contracts for ancillary rights and what those ancillary rights meant to me. And wasn’t just willing to let them do with me whatever they wanted. And if I had I wouldn’t have gone very far. Because they didn’t think I was marketable as a 40-year-old heavyweight champion. And obviously I kept proving them wrong and winning fights they didn’t think I was gonna win.
“So you’re absolutely correct, I’m not surprised that that’s how it has gone down. Chuck [Liddell] and so many other fighters, Tito [Ortiz], Frank Shamrock, there’s a long list of guys that fought for the company, did their best to promote the company and the sport in a positive way and at the end of the day they really got dumped on. And that’s the [modus operandi], that’s why there’s a huge class action lawsuit hanging out there… because of the way that company does business and the lack of transparency in our sport across the board. That’s what the Ali Act and amending the Ali Act would do is create that transparency.”
