Still 'The Natural'
Wednesday, July 15, 2015
They call Randy Couture “The Natural,” a moniker bestowed after a swift rise to the
peaks of professional mixed martial arts (MMA) fighting. While his athletic exploits
still rate notice, “The Natural” earns his nickname these days by taking on vastly
different projects with similarly apparent ease.
“He’s a jack-of-all-trades.” Those words are intended as a compliment to Couture,
but they fall far short. They ignore all the hard work, extreme discipline, and driving
focus with which the 1992 Oklahoma State University graduate approaches each challenge.
In truth, not an ounce of success came easily to Couture.
These days, his challenges range from writing to broadcasting to acting in feature
films. Physical brawn cannot carry the former Cowboys wrestler in such pursuits, but
lessons learned in the cage and on the mat continue to pay off.
“I think that people have these preconceived ideas of what wrestlers and mixed martial
artists are,” Couture says. “They think we’re these big, burly folks who can’t articulate.”
For Couture, nothing could be further from the truth. He has worked as a television
analyst on MMA bouts, written or co-written three books, and spent the last decade
building a promising career in film, most notably as part of The Expendables franchise.
In fact, The Expendables 3 hit theaters in August, and Couture, alongside such action
star icons as Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone, has been involved in all
three installments.
When he is not writing, broadcasting or acting, Couture spends time with his highly
successful Las Vegas-based gym Xtreme Couture MMA, his Xtreme Couture clothing line,
and his military charity, Xtreme Couture G.I. Foundation. Retirement from MMA, it
seems, has left Couture as busy as ever.
Oklahoma State fans are likely to recall his runner-up finishes at the NCAA wrestling
championships in 1991 and 1992. What they may not remember is that Couture was a three-time
Academic All-American and would have made it all four years had freshmen been eligible.
A foreign languages and literature major who specialized in German at OSU, Couture
entered college at 25 after serving in the United States Army for six years. Part
of that time was spent in Germany, but that did not necessarily give Couture a leg
up.
“I learned a lot of slang,” Couture says. “I didn’t know how to spell, and I really
didn’t know how to read [German]. Language skills at that age are a lot of road memory
anyway, so then it becomes a function of diligence.”
His professors in the foreign languages department made an impression on him. He
appreciated the continuity and focus of the faculty.
“It was a small group, you had a lot of the same instructors, so you developed relationships
with them and they got to know you a little more,” he says. “It made it more enjoyable.”
Diligence, focus, motivation — pick one and it probably applies to Couture. Those
qualities have, in the past, been most visible in his athletic pursuits. He was a
three-time All-American at OSU, made Team USA’s Greco-Roman wrestling team as an alternate,
and took the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) by storm, winning six world championships
and earning a spot in its Hall of Fame.
Couture continues to seek challenges, looking for ways to fail. For that, he believes,
is how to build character.
“I think it started from the wrestling mindset at an early age — the kind of diligence
and technical mindset that it builds, because every single guy I know has lost matches
and had to deal with adversity,” he says.
The facts that he did not win an NCAA championship nor advance beyond “alternate”
status for the U.S. Olympic team clearly motivated him as a competitor. He remains
equally motivated with his current pursuits.
“It’s problem-solving in its simplest form.”
Couture has overcome all sorts of problems. Many are detailed in his best-selling
autobiography, Becoming ‘The Natural’: My Life In and Out of the Cage. Published in
2009, Couture gives an uncompromisingly honest account of his life up through the
latter stages of his UFC career. He spent more than two years with co-writer Loretta
Hunt to produce the book and, thanks to his lay-it-all-out-there approach, it was
not always an easy journey.
“I tried to be as honest as I could in the book and, you know, a lot of that was
hard and painful to drudge up,” he says, “but a lot of it I’ve dealt with and still
managed to get through those things, not use them as excuses to fail.”
As he moved into his 40s, Couture realized his years in the UFC were numbered. Acting,
something the athletically gifted Couture never saw himself doing, became not only
a viable option, but a passion. It was a risky passion for while Couture had spent
considerable time in front of a camera, he was always “The Natural” (or “Captain America”
or “Old Man”, depending on your preference for his nickname). His biggest challenge
has simply been to set “Randy” free so that his on-screen characters feel authentic.
“I’ve spent most of my life in an individual combat sport where the key was to be
able to compartmentalize, to place your emotion in boxes and kind of stuff them away,”
he says. “Now I’m in an endeavor where the whole idea is to let those things out.”
And yet, honesty remains.
“You do some things you would never do in real life,” Couture says of acting, “but
you still have to kind of twist that around in a way so that you can relate to it
and tell the truth. If you’re not telling the truth, nobody is going to buy it.”
Apparently audiences and producers are buying it indeed, for Couture’s career is
on an upward swing. The Expendables franchise has given him a high-profile platform
and put him in contact with some of the most successful movie stars in the business.
Aside from enjoying a behind-the-scenes interaction with “Rocky” and “The Terminator,”
Couture observed and sought to learn from the best of the best, just as he did in
wrestling and MMA.
“They know their industry, they know their audience, they know how to succeed, and
that takes a lot of hard work and dedication to what they do.”
That could easily describe Couture’s path to becoming a UFC champion. It took hard
work, dedication and keeping his failures close enough to be used as motivators instead
of inhibitors. It began when he started wrestling as a child; those values continued
to grow as he did. He spent six years in the Army, including three in Germany where
he honed his wrestling skills enough to earn a recruiting visit to OSU.
“I knew the first week I rolled into Stillwater, I’d made the right choice,” Couture
says.
Current OSU head wrestling coach John Smith made a huge impression early on, largely
by how he pushed himself competitively.
“I walked into the wrestling room on my recruiting trip in 1988, and I saw John Smith
and Kenny Monday in there training, putting the time in and doing the work,” Couture
says.
Smith had just wrapped up one of the great collegiate wrestling careers in the 134-pound
weight class and would soon win his first gold medal at the 1988 Olympic games in
Seoul. He became head coach of the Cowboys wrestling team during Couture’s senior
season in 1992.
“I learned in the Army that I could compete at that level, and I learned at Oklahoma
State that I could win at that level,” Couture says.
He’s been winning ever since but is quick to point out his physical prowess only
tells part of the story, especially in regards to the sometimes misunderstood UFC.
“It’s a thinking man’s game,” Couture says. “It’s not just physical brawn; it’s kinetic
chess in just about every sense. You have to outthink your opponent in a physical
way and that takes a lot of discipline and dedication.”
While his coaches and contemporaries such as Chuck Liddel or Tito Ortiz have pushed
him and helped shape his career, Couture looks to home for his most important inspiration.
“I think the biggest influence in my life has always been my mother,” he says. “As
a single parent, with three kids, she demonstrated the work ethic that she instilled
in us three kids and is one of the things that allowed me to distinguish myself from
all the
“It boils down to being able to put yourself out there and do the work.”
Couture is “out there” in a whole new way these days. In addition to The Expendables
3, he has starred in two projects for the Spike TV channel, a film called Fight Master
and a series called Gym Rescue. He also has a cameo in the action-comedy, Stretch,
which stars Ed Helms and Jessica Alba, among others. It is a different role for Couture,
and he seems especially excited about it.
“I’ll be interested to see if anyone even recognizes me in that one but it’s a fun
movie,” he says.
Story By Brian Petrotta