shmandy shatoure

Underboss MMAfia

Head of the West Coast Family
2x Ultimate Challenge Champion

If he's not speaking with a british accent, I'm not watching. This guy is overexposed, considering he hasn't fought in ages...

Randy's a good guy. I think he messed up early on by not having his story straight as to why he was leaving the UFC. Generally though he's brought awareness to the issue of fighter rights and compensation. But, as he admits in this interview, he hasn't really said anything new in a while. I'm just waiting for a resolution to the contract issue and for his next fight.

You'll have to admit that although he hasn't been an active fighter recently his 'stable', Xtreme Couture has arguably been the place to be training judging from the collective record of fighters using that facility.

This brings up something I've been thinking about. I think the camp system is such a unique, interesting aspect to MMA. Along with Xtreme Couture, you've got Greg Jackson, ATT, Quest, Renzo Gracie, Sityodong, MFS, Punishment, Pit, Black House, BTT, Chute Boxe, AKA, Red Devil, etc.

I always envisioned some sort of super-card or tournament to figure out which camp is the best. I feel like the IFL was onto something but they screwed it up by making it too cartoonish (and they didn't have the absolute best fighters, which hurt too.) But, imagine a super-card where somehow you could get the top fighters from all the top teams to fight each other to determine camp supremacy. That would be pretty cool...

Finally watching this video makes me actually respect where Randy's coming from. Everyone, including me has always said 'why in the hell didn't he just fight those last two fights on his contract' and most of us thought he was a douche, turning his back on the fans by not just manning up and getting those fights out of the way. Well, I guess I wouldn't fight those last two fights either if what was important to me was 'controlling your own destiny' after always working for 'the company' for years and years. I have to say I thought it was all about the money in the end, but I can definitely appreciate wanting to have complete control over the direction you take your career in after 11 some odd years as a fighter, especially when it's going to be your last year or two...