Couture Vs Toney; The Aftermath

So, in the end, everyone had read their scripts: Toney wound up staring at the ceiling within seconds and Couture had less of a challenge then he does teaching his 11-15 year olds wrestling class. He feinted with his hands from the outset before shooting a very low single leg, moved to full mount and retained the position. From there he executed some ground and pound whilst steering Toney towards the cage. From there he found the opening to establish an arm triangle close to the cage. The debacle came to an end in just over three minutes.

Toney talked afterwards of having mistimed Couture’s shoot, it simply would not have mattered. Couture was an alternate in the US Olympic wrestling team and has been in MMA for over a decade, Toney had trained to stuff shoots for a matter of months: he never saw it coming. The difference between a grappler being put on his back and a man off the street was highlighted in embarrassing fashion for Toney. He looked like Stephen Hawking would if he had fallen out of bed in the middle of the night: his arms flailed around hopelessly whilst his legs remained motionless and uninvolved.

The fight will not enhance Randy’s standings and he is still waiting in line for a return to title contention, an interesting fight with Cro-cop has been touted although a return to the light-heavy scene is more in keeping with the statements that he has made about the heavyweights since losing to Lesnar. For Toney it may have raised his profile somewhat as he has been out of the ring since 2009 and has not fought in a top level fight since losing to Sam Peter in 2007. The media coverage alone could steer him towards bigger fights.

In the main event on the card BJ Penn was soundly beaten by Frankie Edgar. It was an even more convincing performance than the first time around with Edgar taking Penn down early and mixing his attacks up very effectively. He changed his levels and proved to be an elusive target whilst keeping up a high offensive tempo. It was clear that Penn was out of his comfort zone fighting a smaller, faster opponent having spent many of his fights taking on bigger, stronger foes. Edgar won a wide decision, taking every round.

Penn has said that he is looking to return to action sooner rather than later and only time will tell if Penn has seen better days or whether Edgar is just his stylistic bogeyman.