Randy Couture alerted Dana White in a letter from South Africa that he was severing ties with UFC and vacating the heavyweight title. It is believed the main area of contention (but not the only one) was UFC's inability to make the long-awaited Couture vs. Fedor Emelianenko PRIDE vs. UFC Heavyweight Champion dream fight. Fedor very recently signed a deal with the M-1 promotion after months of negotiations with UFC. This is a giant blow to the world's biggest MMA organization
Dana White posted the following at UFC.tv:
“I’m not surprised at all by Randy’s decision. I talked to Randy several weeks ago and he said that if he couldn’t fight Fedor, then he has nothing left to prove in the sport of mixed martial arts.
He has been doing a lot of acting, and I know he is in South Africa right now filming a movie. I think it’s a great move for Randy’s acting career to retire from fighting while he is on top.
As we all know, Randy retired before. The landscape in MMA changes every day. So when he is ready to come out of retirement again, he is still under contract with me, and I’m ready to promote him.”
