Continuing to fight the good fight
Randy Couture
MMA legend Randy “The Natural” Couture is being honored July 26 at Haze for his support of America’s troops. His charity, Xtreme Couture GI Foundation, is also being honored, with a donation from Lookingglass Cyber Solutions, which is teaming with Couture to raise awareness about cyberwarfare. The event coincides with the Black Hat Conference at Caesars Palace. Kiko Miyasato talked with Couture about his Lookingglass partnership and his famed career.
Q: What’s your relationship with Lookingglass Cyber Solutions?
A: (We have) some parallels in our goals. Of course, Lookingglass concentrates on securing cyberspace. At the end of the day, we’re both helping our troops on the ground and that’s something that Don (Gilberg, Lookingglass investor) and I share in common.
Q: How do your charity and Lookingglass look out for the troops?
A: Technologically, things have changed (in the last few decades). There was no such thing as a smart phone back then, (or) the Internet. So there’s people out there that could have potential access to my credit cards, my information … you take that one step further and you talk about planning attacks and a war, and we use a lot of technology to move our troops, plan our assaults; so somebody could potentially hack those systems. That’s a bad day for soldiers. My foundation is going to see a lot of those guys coming back from combat … I think, coming (at it from) different angles with Lookingglass, we are trying to make life better for (the troops).
Q: Switching gears, did you think MMA would get so big?
A: Well, we were all concerned there for a while whether it was going to die off. We were largely misunderstood; people thought we were all thugs and criminals and it was human cockfighting and all those things they were saying about us and, really, I was the guy next door! This was my chance and my opportunity to be a professional athlete, which is a huge deal in our society.
Q: What’s the relationship between boxing and MMA?
A: The thing with mixed martial arts is that there’s so many dimensions. Guys come from so many different styles (of fighting) … there’s so many variables and that’s just the physical piece of it. When you’re exposed to all the facets of mixed marital arts and then you go back to boxing where two guys are just trying to punch each other in the head, it’s almost stale.
Q: You retired last year. How was that decision?
A: At the end of the day, I wanted to kind of go out on my own terms. I made a conscious, rational decision to stop and once I came to that decision I never looked back.
