Before Randy Couture became a UFC pioneer, a multiple-belt champion and an inspiration to athletes in their 40s and beyond, he was an assistant wrestling coach at Oregon State with a burning competitive drive and no place to direct it.
Couture was training wrestlers in Corvallis when he saw his first mixed martial arts fight, and it put him on a winding, lucrative path that’s led him right back to Oregon.
The Pacific Northwest will welcome home an accomplished native athlete Saturday night when Couture (16-9) meets Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira (31-5-1) at Portland’s Rose Garden in the main event of UFC 102, the league’s first major show in Oregon.
