FightHype.com takes you back in time to revisit all the action of fights gone by. In this unique series, get a firsthand look at what it's like to experience the physical, mental and emotional ups and downs of a professional prizefight. Find out what the fighters were going through before, during and after the fights as their trainers relive some of the highlights of their most memorable bouts. On August 25, 2007, UFC heavyweight champion Randy Couture defended his title that he had just won back against the hard-hitting fast-rising heavyweight Gabriel Gonzaga. Check out how Ron Frazier remembers what turned out to be one of the most definitive moments of Randy Couture's career.
TRAINING CAMP
Randy's mindset is always good going into camp. He's a confident dude. He had just won the title from Tim, so he was very confident and he was ready to defend it. It was a lot of excitement and energy in the building throughout camp. Obviously we had great respect for Gabriel Gonzaga. He's a big dude and we had just seen him kick Cro Cop's head off, but we were confident that he hadn't dealt with being in a main event of this magnitude before against a guy he idolized, so we were pretty confident that we were going to be able to handle this and we had a lot of people in. We worked on getting out of things on the ground. We knew how good his ground game was and of course we had to watch out for that big kick so that he didn't get his head kicked off as well.
We were fortunate to not have signed for that fight until he showed us the wrinkle of having a phenomenal head kick. Of course he wasn't warranted the title shot until after his fight with Cro Cop. We knew what was coming and we knew what to expect because we've kinda seen it before. He is a big dude. I mean, we weren't worried about it, but it's MMA so you prepare for everything. You prepare for kicks, knees, elbows, takedowns, submissions and punches. You gotta prepare for it all because the time you don't prepare for it all is the time you get caught slipping. We had some big guys in camp and we knew what to expect and Randy was coming off of the fight with Tim Sylvia, and they don't get much bigger than Tim Sylvia, so he knew he was fighting another behemoth, but he figured he would be able to take him down. We also figured his dirty boxing would be very affective. This would be one of the few times, with Randy moving back up in weight as a heavyweight, that he could use his quickness and he would be the quicker fighter. He could use his quickness and we were counting on that going into the fight and it proved to be right.
Everyone in MMA knows what a great strategist Randy Couture is and the game planning goes in as soon as he signs for the fight. As soon as he signs, he starts breaking it down and watching film and we go from there.
PRE-FIGHT
He didn't say anything in particular, but just looking at his body language at the press conference and being able to read a fighter, I looked at it and said, "You know what? This moment is too big for him." Years later, being able to train Gabriel, I told him that. Going into that bout, I was kinda concerned because he was a young, big and athletic guy, so I felt like we had our work cut out for us. As soon as I saw him at the weigh-in, I was like, "We got this!"
THE FIGHT
In the 1st round, Randy caught a kick on his forearm and initially he thought it was a bruise and he kinda shook it off. It wasn't until after the fight, actually about 2:00 in the morning, that he realized the arm was broken. After the fight, the adrenaline is still pumping, but after the fight, he came to me and was like, "Coach, come here. My arm feels funny. I think it's broken." And then he was like, "Nah, I think it's okay." And then, at his post-fight afterparty, he texted me saying he definitely thought it was broken. Randy never surprises me in fights. Everything we worked on came through. His standup was brilliant and he took him down. When he took him down and broke his nose, I think we initially thought it was Randy's head that did it, but after watching the replay, it looked like when Randy took Gonzaga down, his own knee hit himself in the nose and broke his own nose. You kinda saw a little panic on his face after that. I think Randy broke him then. He had trouble breathing and he was fighting this guy who he knows had great stamina. Everybody was kinda saying before the fight, "If it ends early, you have to favor Gonzaga, but the more this fight weighs on, you gotta favor Randy." Gonzaga was a guy that hadn't been out of the 1st round but a couple of times leading up to that fight.
A lot of big guys honestly don't know how to fight well on the inside and he hadn't shown that he was a guy that could get you in the clinch and throw knees. We knew staying on the outside, he was very dangerous with that kick. And obviously Randy, with his Greco background and his dirty boxing, he didn't mind putting him up against the cage and making it a grimey fight and just kind of taking the life out of you, and that's what he did in that fight. I remember midway through the 2nd, Gabe had a problem seeing and he was telling the referee he couldn't see and the ringside doctor came and took a look at him. I thought it was the beginning of the end right there. I knew it was about to be over. If Randy could either take him down or hit him with that one good shot, then the fight would be done.
POST-FIGHT
After the Gonzaga fight, Randy went through his differences with the UFC and that was tough. He came back to face Brock Lesnar after a long layoff and you get a guy that's so big and so massive that you really haven't dealt with before. That's what we had to deal with. As far as training camp for Lesnar, we had a lot of big people and quick people, but the only thing we couldn't replicate was is reach, because it doesn't look like Brock's arms are so long. He's so burly, you don't realize he has an 82-inch reach until you get into the cage with him and that was the problem. That became problematic that night of how to deal with that reach. Some of that was systematic of being off that long. We've fought guys that were big and long before, but you kinda expect that when you're fighting a Tim Sylvia, who is 6'7", so you know he has an 84-inch reach. We just didn't realize Brock's reach was that long until we got there. Even with the layoff, we all thought Randy would fight again. We all thought the fight with Fedor might come to fruition, but we knew he would fight again, whether it was going to be with Affliction or in the UFC, we knew he was going to get another fight.
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