By Kelsey Mowatt Heading into last night’s UFC 118 contest between highly decorated boxer James Toney and MMA legend Randy “The Natural” Couture, most observers questioned whether or not Toney would even be able to stay on his feet long enough, to land any telling strike on the accomplished wrestler. As the world now knows, the answer is no. Just moments into the co-main-event, Couture quickly took Toney to the mat with a single-leg-takedown, before efficiently working his way into a fight ending arm-triangle-choke.
Speaking at the post-fight presser, Couture acknowledged that his strategy to win the highly anticipated fight went exactly as planned.
“Yeah, exactly how I saw it in my head,” Couture told reporters afterwards. “I had no illusions of standing around and trading any kind of blows with James. I had to pull out the old single from college and dust it off; spent the whole camp working on that low shot because it’s pretty hard to counter punch that. You have to be within arm’s length to be really able to hit a double leg, and if I’m within an arm’s length, guess what? He’s got arms and he can hit me with it. So I thought I could get to his feet and put him on his butt with that low single and it worked.”
When asked a follow up question as to whether or not the former UFC light-heavyweight and heavyweight champion was nervous heading into the bout, one which was billed as a “boxing vs.MMA” affair, Couture replied:
“I wasn’t worried about that so much; through training camp I had a couple doubts about whether or not the low shot was going to work, and I was going to have to try to get within his range to set up a double leg or run him into the fence and try the clinch. I think today, especially, in the locker room working with Ray, while the other guys were out cornering Gray, the low shot just felt sharp and, again, in my mind I felt like it was going to work; it was going to be the key.”
Couture also conceded in the press conference that utilizing a single-leg-takedown, is not typically the preferred weapon of choice in MMA, due to the fact that a “good grappler or wrestler is going to step out of that.” The 47 year-old Couture also stated that he didn’t think Toney would have an answer for the takedown; clearly he was right.
