An interview on Fighters Only website revealed that “The Natural” Randy Couture has a desire to fight Mirko Crocop. Randy, whose son Ryan is making his pro-MMA debut on August 13th in Srikeforce, was quoted by “a source very close to the veteran fighter” at Xtreme Couture as saying:

“I can almost guarantee that he would gladly take that fight. I know it’s one that he was all for two years ago. I think he’d rather fight a contender at 205 but that he’d never shy away from a high profile fight like that,” the source told us.

Guess nobody told Randy that he said that! Earlier today, Randy Couture updated his twitter denying those comments, simply stating, “Whats all this cro cop talk ? Ive made no comments on cro cop . I have a ton of respect for him but us fighting is kind of old news!”

In other words, this alleged source really did not talk to Randy at all. Go credited news sources for not checking who your source really is! Lesson learned, if you don’t hear it from the horse’s mouth, that horse probably didn’t say it. Aside from that, i have always wanted to see Randy VS Crocop, but it seems one half of that equation is uninterested. So, let’s play pretend! If Randy and Crocop finally met in mortal combat inside the octagon, who would win and how?

The August Strikeforce Challengers event is shaping up to be interesting, despite the company still being unsure of whether Carina Damm will be fighting or not. Ryan Couture, son of MMA legend Randy “The Natural” Couture, has signed a multi-fight agreement STRIKEFORCE and will make his professional MMA debut on Friday, Aug. 13 at the Strikeforce Challengers event at Dodge Theatre in Phoenix, Ariz. The 27-year-old Couture, a member of the Las Vegas, Nev., based Xtreme Couture fight team, will face Lucas Stark of Chandler, Ariz. in a three-round lightweight (155 pounds) bout.

The Western Washington University graduate with a degree in mathematics brings with him an amateur record of 5-1-1 competing as a lightweight with all five wins coming by way of submission. In his final amateur bout on March 26, Couture fought to a draw against Sean Bollinger for the Tuff-N-UFF 155-pound title fight at The Orleans in Las Vegas.

Here is hoping Ryan will have more success than others who use the Couture name (*cough* Kim Couture *cough*). Will the son of one of the greatest legends in MMA rise to the top like his father or will he end up like Kim and be a cancerous mole on the neck of MMA fans?

The Fight Nerd, with Tomopop.com, takes a look at the second wave of the “UFC Collector” series from Round 5 MMA collectibles. This line includes five-inch caricatured versions of UFC headliners BJ Penn, Randy Couture, Forrest Griffin, Michael Bisping, Tito Ortiz and Kimbo Slice. Are these vinyl figures worth your hard-earned cash or should you save your money for something more useful? Watch the vid and decide!

Electronic Arts is gearing up for the October release of EA Sports MMA for the next-gen consoles, which you can see the cover of the game at this link here, and has just released a cornucopia of images (which are after the jump) and a keen video to give you a preview of what is to come!

First off, we learn about the innovative Create-a-fighter function, which allows you to plot points on a picture of your face compared to another so that you can have a three-dimensional likeness of yourself in the video game! After that, it is time to train, and why not take some classes from instructors like Randy Couture, Pat Miletich, Bas Rutten or even Rickson Gracie! Bas had hinted to us in an interview a few months ago he was going to be involved in a very important aspect of the game, and now we know what that was!

You can also train and compete internationally, where certain places have different rules. In other words, yes, you can soccer kick your opponent in Japan! After career mode is finished, you can jump onto Xbox Live and battle some real opponents, and maybe even win some real prizes if you are good enough!

Are you still not convinced this game is worth buying? Hit the jump to see a ton of photos released of this mode, dare I say, a venerable buttload of photos! Watch the video above for more info and footage.

E3 continues to bring us new goodies from the MMA gaming world. This time around, we get a glimpse of some of the gameplay footage of EA Sports MMA with the heavyweights doing battle. Digital versions of Randy Couture and Fedor Emelianeko do battle inside a Japanese style ring, and there must be a winner! Check out the video above to watch the action!

What are my thoughts on it? I think this game is looking pretty great, graphics and gameplay wise. I was very impressed with how THQ handled the UFC game in 2009, especially since I was used to playing the old versions that were essentially button mashers. EA Sports MMA seems to have upped the ante and found more efficient ways to do things and really adding a much deeper sense of understanding towards the sport over the UFC game. The front headlock alone is one aspect of it, how Randy fights to get his hooks in on Fedor’s back one leg at a time, this game captures the ground game in a very comprehensive manner and will make for a very competitive gaming experience.

I can not say which game is better just yet until it is in my hands, but everything I have seen so far from EA has done nothing but impress me. They have innovated a complicated sport that would not normally translate well into a video game, and made it as close to real as we have seen. Look for this in October, and a comprehensive review around the same time! What do you think of this gameplay footage?

At yesterday’s EA press conference, EA Sports president announced two major facts about EA Sports MMA, the publisher’s upcoming mixed martial arts game. Two of the headlining fighters in the game, Fedor Emelianenko and Randy Couture, will share the cover. And we finally have a release date: October 19th, 2010. This is also days before my birthday, hint hint.

Furthermore, one new tidbit of news was added and that is the game is no longer EA MMA but now EA Sports MMA. Why the slight change? Not sure. This is a tentative change as of now, and it may return to just EA MMA, but as of now the name is being lengthened.

So get ready this October as this game hits your PS3 and Xbox 360 and we can see which MMA video game is better, UFC Undisputed or the new kid on the block, EA Sports MMA!

Via Destructoid.com

It’s action figure madness this month, courtesy of Jakks Pacific. Following up the news of their Kimbo Slice variant with fuzzy chest hair, Jakks has revealed prototype pictures for Wave 6 of their UFC Deluxe Action Figures. MMAfigs.com got the scoop, showing off pics of Bas Rutten, Clay Guida, Randy Couture, Georges St-Pierre, Tito Ortiz, Bas Rutten, Frank Mir, Jens Pulver and Thiago Alves.

Keep in mind, these are prototypes and NOT the final sculpt, so if Couture looks too old or GSP has a funny nose, just remember that the final product will look different from what you see here. Also to note, this line only has one previously released figure, which would be Frank Mir, however this Mir has a different hair sculpt which looks like a more recent Mir, so I would say this is a pretty strong line considering we have multiple champions and main-eventers in it.

My personal favorite is the Bas Rutten, which has to be the most accurate figure I have seen Jakks make since their Kevin Randleman figure from an earlier wave. In other words, you can now re-enact their famous fight from UFC 20 for the Heavyweight Title and this time, you be the judge who wins it (even though I stand by Bas being the champ, not that it mattered since he retired soon after).

Hit the jump for the rest of the pics

Photos via MMAfigs.com

The UFC Fan Expo is over and the majority of the attendees have at last sobered up, at least enough to start posting pics of the huge event. Our friends at No Surrender Fight Wear attended the show, and being huge figure nerds like I am (maybe more since they made a Wanderlei Silva custom Mighty Muggs figure), snapped plenty of pics of all the new offerings on the way from Jakks Pacific and Round 5.

Jakks showed off many never before seen items and some we saw back at Toy Fair in NY, including figures of Don Frye, Wanderlei Silva, Matt Hughes, Sean Sherk, and Dan Severn, complete with dampened grey sweat shirt ( I wonder if every figure will come pre-soaked with “The Beast’s” perspiration). They also unveiled the first bloody pair of figures, Stephan Bonnar and Forrest Griffin, and a mysterious translucent Chuck Liddell with illuminated guts and stuff. Pretty cool looking, even if it does seem like a clever way to market an anti-smoking ad.

Round 5 showed off more figures from their UFC Collector series, including Diego Sanchez, Wanderlei Silva, Randy Couture, Rashad Evans, BJ Penn, Chuck Liddell and many more. They also debuted their two-packs, which have all new sculpts for fighters they have made before like Rich Franklin, Frank Mir and Tito Ortiz, and also some totally new faces including Brock Lesnar.

Hit the jump to see many more pics of all the new toys and prepare for an MMA action figure nerdgasm!

The Ultimate Ultimate belt, a championship belt up there with the Pride OWGP title belts, is coming to a waistline near you!

Ultimate film bad-ass Danny Trejo talks to The Fight Nerd about his lead role in the upcoming film “Vengeance” (the trailer for the film is at this linkie here), which features Rashad Evans and Houston Alexander as well. Trejo is also in several other big movies with MMA fighters this year, including “The Expendables” with Sylvester Stallone, Jet Li and Randy Couture and “Predators” with Oleg Taktarov and Adrien Brody, which we have some pics of Oleg on set from a few months ago. We discuss how Trejo feels working with the fighters, as well his thoughts on MMA and boxing and what is next for his movie career.

According to an interview with Dana White from Kotaku.com, the UFC is dropping their ban on fighters appearing in EA’s MMA video game.

White revealed that he is backing off his earlier threats to ban any fighter who appears in EA’s game to be a part of UFC. “Nah, some people have crossed over,” he told Kotaku, “But believe me this is still going to continue to be a battle. …they’re the me-toos. The UFC game is the original game.”

This brings good tidings to several names and reassures of what is up with this non-issue. As we already know, Randy Couture will be appearing in EA MMA but is under contract to the UFC, as is Frank Trigg now and the recent addition of Vladimir Matyushenko. What is more important is that Dana White holds much contempt for EA, and that is truly the meat of this fight.

Dana is also not worried at all about taking a financial loss in 2010 as two MMA games come out in one year, as he explains in the interview.

“They’re bigger than THQ,” he said. “They have been. Let’s see how they do now. Their earnings reports just came out and they suck. This company that used to control the whole video game world and were these big fucking giants, we’ll see where they are in the next two years. And as as far as the MMA space goes, we’ll kick the living shit out of them.”

Is he warranted in his hatred of anything that rivals the UFC? Sure, why not. Do we expect anything less from Dana? Irrational banning of people is commonplace in the UFC but so is retracting those actions. All that matters is that there are two MMA games coming out and we as the fans have a voice in who succeeds.