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With all the pesky rumors about Rich Franklin replacing Tito Ortiz on TUF 11 and UFC 115, Rich makes absolutely zero mention of it in an interview with the Boston Herald. In fact, he confirmed he’s been in talks to fight Randy Couture just as Dana White said.

“It’s not signed yet, but we’ve been working Randy now for a while. We’ve talked June, then we talked August and now we’re talking June again,” Franklin said. “I think we’re having problems with Randy’s scheduling. So I really don’t know what the plan is at this point.”

Franklin also said he’s finally ready to make one more title run before he hangs up the gloves for good in 2-3 years.

“I’m at a point now where I’ve fought enough fights and it’s time for me to make a title run again and see where that takes me. That’s where my focus is Now,’‘ said Franklin, who has five fights left on his contract. “It depends on the speed of things. I would imagine I’ll probably end up negotiating one more contract before I retire. I’m looking at another two or three years of fighting.”

It looks like that run will start with Randy Couture, not Chuck Liddell, but I’m sure another report will surface before the week’s out saying otherwise.

We’re back in business. Sorry for the late start today, but our flight was delayed several hours last night and I didn’t get home until 5 o’clock in the morning.

“If they think I’m going to go in there and get choked out or lay down and get my armbarred and all that, they got another thing coming to ‘em, you know what I’m saying? Like I said, yeah, you’re right, MMA is not like boxing because boxing is tougher, you know what I’m saying? I look at it like this, if a guy get in there and try to take me to the ground, he might see his head go into orbit. The head is going into orbit, for real. These guys in MMA, they good wrestlers and good grapplers and good kickers, like girls, but, you know, when it comes to throwing them blows, they ain’t got a chance in hell, you know what I’m saying? Then they say I don’t got a chance if I go to the floor. Hey, the only way you gonna know is if you tune in and watch. And that’s what I want you to do. Pay your $54.95, come see James Toney. If you hate me, come see me try to get beat, if you love me, you enjoy the ride, have a good time and eat your popcorn…Randy Couture, he respects my game like I respect his game. He’s the best at what he do in his sport; I’m the best at what I do in my sport. We gonna see who has the better style and everybody know it’s James Toney. If he tries to throw blow for blow with me, he definitely gonna get knocked out. That’s a given, you know what I’m saying? If he tries to take me to the ground, it ain’t going to be easy, you know what I’m saying? He’s still gonna get knocked out. Either way, it’s a lose-lose situation for him.”

—James Toney telling Fight Hype he’ll knock out Randy Couture wherever the fight goes

I’m not gonna lie, I couldn’t care less about James Toney fighting in the UFC (a boxer in their prime like Pacquiao, yes, Toney, no) and damn sure wouldn’t pay $55 just to see him, but if he fights Couture, it will be kind of entertaining to see what happens if Couture manages to put him in his clinch and dump him on the mat. Something tells me if that happens, it won’t be Couture who gets knocked out.

What do you think? Is Couture the right opponent for Toney? Would Toney knock him out?

“We threw the kitchen sink at Brock when he came in. Are we going to do that same thing with James? I don’t know. To be 100 percent honest with you, all [expletive] aside, I haven’t thought it out…I like James Toney. He’s one of the greatest boxers ever. I have tremendous respect for him. He said he wanted to fight in the UFC and I was interested. Now he’s here and I have to figure out what to do with him. What we won’t do is make a freak show out of it. I’d be the first to scream if someone else did that, so I’m not going to do it…Hey, I don’t want this to be seen as a joke, and it’s not like Herschel Walker or Canseco or any of those guys. James Toney is a fighter. The worst thing anyone can ever say to me is that they were watching one of my fights and they changed the channel. That’s why I’ll never put [expletive] fights on…James is an interesting case. We know how much talent he has as a boxer and he insists he’ll surprise people by how much MMA he knows. I’ve still got some thinking to do. But if we promote him and he does well and that raises his profile and he gets a Klitschko fight and makes a lot of money for himself and Goossen, I’d be cool with that. But James came to me and he literally chased me around the country to do it, so I’m giving him the chance. We’ll get it figured out one way or another.”

—Dana White telling Yahoo! Sports he’s still figuring out what to do with James Toney, but it won’t be a “freak show”

The report also reveals that Toney will compete as a light heavyweight and will be allowed to box, which is a first for the UFC. According to Dana, Strikeforce was also talking to Toney about fighting Herschel Walker. Toney had this to say about the signing.

“Don’t make wise cracks about my weight, because I’ve been working hard and the next time you see me, you’ll be shocked,” said Toney, who said he would probably box sometime in the next six weeks to get the rust off. “Dana put his foot in his mouth and said UFC guys are better fighters than boxers. We’ll see. Everyone who knows anything about fighting knows I’m the purest fighter in the game. There ain’t no secrets.

“I’ve been fighting a long time. I was born fighting. I know what I’m doing. Boxing is still my main focus, but them guys are a bunch of (expletives) and they don’t want to fight. So I called Dana after he put his foot in his mouth and I’m going to prove he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

His first opponent is still a mystery, but Randy Couture is already asking for the fight.

Update: Dave Meltzer seems to think the Toney signing, or at least the willingness on the UFC’s part to allow him to box, had a lot to do with Strikeforce trying to sign him to fight Herschel Walker.Via Fight Opinion:

“Strikeforce was negotiating or at least Dana (White) was under the impression that Strikeforce was negotiating a Herschel Walker/James Toney fight for CBS most likely, perhaps for PPV. And so he decided that I will outbid them and ruin that fight. So I think that’s what that’s all about because the key to me is that they’re letting [Toney] box. I mean, like if [UFC] had any you know thoughts that this guy was really valuable to them, they weren’t going to sign him to a non-exclusive contract. They’ve never signed anyone to a non-exclusive contract and they signed him to a non-exclusive contract.”

On a semi-related note, there are rumblings that the UFC may counter-program Strikeforce’s April 17 CBS event with a live event of their own. However, since Herschel Walker is no longer associated with that card, will the UFC still see it as a big of enough threat to justify putting together a whole new event for? Doesn’t seem like it to me, but who knows. I wouldn’t put it past the UFC to do anything to crush the competition. Apparently, Strikeforce is prepared for it though. Josh Gross is hearing SF has the flexibility to switch their event to April 24 and counter WEC 48 if the UFC tries to counter them on April 17. Promotion chess match.

Oh, and by the way, Pat Barry wants to fight James Toney…tonight!

“It’s awesome, man,” he said. “It just widens the pool of fighters. If it was up to me, I’d rather see someone get stung and knocked out versus submitted any day. If he hits you, you’re going to get hurt. I’m looking forward to seeing him do damage if he can make the adjustment.”

“It’s dope, man,” Barry said. “I want to fight him. Tonight.”

Love that guy.

Round 5 has unveiled series 2 of their UFC Ultimate Collector figurines. This batch includes BJ Penn, Tito Ortiz, Forrest Griffin, Michael Bisping, Randy Couture and Kimbo Slice. They hit retail stores in April.

Following yesterday’s news that Ben Rothwell has pulled out his fight against Mirko Cro Cop comes a report from Croatian website MMA Axion that Cro Cop has sustained a cut during a training session that required stitches. Despite the minor injury, Cro Cop apparently still wants to fight and declined to pull out of the match against Anthony Perosh.

In the US, a state athletic commission would forbid a fighter from competing under those circumstances, but in Australia, at least to my knowledge, there isn’t a commission that would enforce such rules. That said, the UFC typically assumes the commission’s role overseas and follow the NSAC’s guidelines, so you would think they would have to make the tough decision to pull him off the card.

There is reason to question the validity of the report though. It also said that the UFC asked both Randy Couture and Rampage Jackson to step in for Ben Rothwell before eventually settling on Anthony Perosh. That sounds pretty fishy. Is Randy Couture in Australia? Why would they risk the Rampage-Rashad fight by putting him in with Cro Cop? Is Rampage even close to being in shape? The report said they both declined, but still, I’m having a hard time believing Couture or Rampage was ever on their short list to begin with on basically two days notice.

Unfortunately, there isn’t a swarm of reporters from the MMA media down in Sydney to get to the bottom of this. Kevin Iole is the only one I know of, so hopefully he’s able to do a little digging and find out what’s going on.

Until then, I guess we chock this one up as a rumor and assume the Cro Cop vs. Perosh fight is still on.

Update: Both Kevin Iole and Jeremy Botter are reporting that this rumor is false. Both Cro Cop and Perosh weighed in, so the fight is definitely happening.

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