Dana White Loves Not Having to Work with Randy Couture Anymore

Randy "The Natural" Couture

Dana White Happy to See Randy Couture Leave

News broke earlier this week that UFC Hall of Famer Randy Couture signed a multi-year deal with the Viacom-owned Spike TV. Many observers have been curious about how UFC President Dana White would react.

A fan on twitter asked White about his feelings concerning the signing. White tweeted back, “I love it.”

It seemed on the surface as if White’s reaction was of a congratulatory nature. However, as MMAjunkie.com reported, it was more of a sigh of relief. The burden of doing business with “The Natural” has been lifted off of his shoulders.

"Randy Couture comes off as the greatest guy in the world – Captain America," White said. "He's the furthest thing from it, and I'm happy that I don't have to be in business with him anymore. Now I don't ever have to be in business with him again."

Such feelings from Couture's longtime employer may confuse the more recent fans of MMA, since he had been a reoccurring on-air analyst in the first five UFC broadcasts on FOX. For the more seasoned MMA fans, this is just history repeating itself. The fighter resigned from the UFC in 2007 over his frustration with the UFC’s management and the inability of the promotion to sign Fedor Emelianenko for him to fight. The two sides battled in court over Couture’s contract.

White said that is when he saw the full picture of Couture.

"I would say when that whole lawsuit went down, when he lied about his numbers and lied about a lot of things, went into court and it didn't work out for him, I say that's when I really got to know him," he said. "And when that whole thing went down, I was the guy he was attacking.

"It's easy if you look at me and the way that I am in public, it's easy to say, 'Oh, this is the guy we can attack and make me look good.' Of course, everybody's going to side with Randy.

"This guy that he's playing out to be this horrible human being, there were a lot of things that happened in there, but the nail in the coffin was, if I'm this horrible, despicable human being that he speaks about ... when he was in town ... him and his wife were in town when he had just had a brand new baby, they're down in Las Vegas filming 'The Ultimate Fighter' – would you drop your baby off at that guy's house to watch your brand new baby, and leave him there overnight and come pick him up the next day?"

Sam Spira, Couture’s representative, would not comment on the matter.

Reports from Sports Illustrated, which first confirmed Spike TV signing on Couture, claim White was furious upon hearing of the fighter’s new venture.

Part of that contract contains a deal for Couture to serve as a coach on the first season of the upcoming Bellator reality show, with filming set to start next month, as well as appear on various other Spike TV projects.

The former two-division UFC champion retired from competition after losing to Lyoto Machida at UFC 129 in 2011. Since then, he has turned is focus on his acting career, with big parts in the big blockbuster films “The Expendables” and “The Expendables 2,” and another role in “The Setup.”

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