Some fighters fight for money, some for a title, while some fight for the love of fighting. Jon Jones, for example, has said that the most important thing for him right now is to have ‘fun fights’ where he makes the most money for the least amount of risk. But this mindset is quite new to MMA, with one of Jones’ prestigious predecessors having put everything on the line simply to prove he’s the best in the world.

Back in October 2007, when he was the UFC’s heavyweight champion and one of the promotion’s biggest stars, Randy Couture vacated his title seemingly out of nowhere. Why? Because he wanted to go on a quest. A pursuit to fight the stone-faced assassin Fedor Emelianenko, who was the biggest, most popular mixed martial artist at the time.

However, there was just one problem with this plan- he was still under contract with the UFC. Dana White refused to accept Couture’s ‘resignation’ and made it clear that ‘The Natural’ could not leave the promotion before fighting out his contract. In the end, ‘The Natural’ would have no choice but to scurry back to the UFC where he would continue to fight until his retirement four years later. However, this is just the cliff-notes version of the story, which is far more interesting when heard from Couture’s own mouth with all the details.

“That’d [Fedor fight] be the one. That’s the only one that didn’t really happen. I chased that fight for over a year, spent a lot of my own money with lawyers and you know the UFC injuncting me to keep me from going anywhere else, to make that fight happen. And it was an interesting time, for sure. Ultimately resigned the belt to leave the UFC and find a way to make that fight happen somewhere else,” Couture told Tim Welch on the latter’s podcast.

Fedor, of course, never fought in the UFC. But back then he was the biggest star the sport had ever seen. There was a debate at the time on who the best heavyweight in the world was- Fedor or Couture- and ‘The Natural’ wanted to put an end to that debate once and for all. And he did seem to be making progress with entrepreneur Mark Cuban backing him. However, Couture just couldn’t get out of his UFC contract and unfortunately never got to fight ‘The Last Emperor’.

“Mark Cuban was helping me kind of chase that down, you know. He had Access TV and American Airlines Arena in Dallas and a lot of connections to try and make that fight happen. And at some point, it just wasn’t going to work. They [the UFC] had me so tied up trying to bleed me money and make me come back to them basically, which is ultimately where I ended up,” he added. Even though he is retired, Couture still has strong opinions about the sport, especially about the UFC heavyweight title, which he himself held on several occasions.

Randy Couture thinks Jon Jones’ legacy is at stake if he doesn’t fight Aspinall

Randy Couture knows something about being champion with his status as a six-time holder of the company’s heavyweight and light heavyweight titles. This is why he feels that Jon Jones‘ hesitation to fight Tom Aspinall “calls into question where his heart’s at,” and if ‘Bones’ “really has that motivation to continue to establish himself” as a heavyweight at all.

If Jones indeed wants to be remembered as one of the heavyweight GOATs, ‘The Natural’ told ‘Inside Fighting’ in a recent interview that the New Mexico resident needs to “step up, clean out the division. Take on Aspinall. Put an exclamation point on it.” Of course, the Jones-Aspinall heavyweight title unification bout is the biggest fight in the entire sport at the moment.

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But ‘Bones’ really doesn’t want to fight Aspinall. Many suspect this because of the risk the Englishman poses for him. At the moment Jones is in talks with the UFC, trying to secure “f**k you money” to fight the interim champ. This means that there is still a possibility fans never get to see Jones fight Aspinall and determine who the best heavyweight in the world is. And Couture, understandably, doesn’t want that to happen, not again. What do you think about Couture’s revelations?