Current UFC heavyweight champion Randy "The Natural" Couture was recently interviewed in regards to some comments from Affliction’s co-founder Tom Beard. Not too long ago, Beard had a few negative words to say to Couture when he stated
"Randy, if you’re listening right now…I hope (expletive) Lesnar kills you."
A few days later, Couture was asked what he thought about Beard’s statement and he quickly responded by saying
"I really don’t understand where Todd Beard’s coming from in his attack on me, my wife, my attorney, now the Ferttitas and Lorenzo specifically, and Dana White. I don’t understand it…(Todd) feels there’s this adversarial relationship created and I don’t get it. It’s gone beyond the antics of being a promoter, so we’ll see how all that unfolds, and where the relationship stands, and where we end up with that down the road."
Couture does not have anything against Affliction, the clothing company and now a new fighting organizaiton. He agrees that it is always good for fighters to have competition between mixed martial arts organizations, but feels that Beard is probably not the best person to run this type of business.
"As long as they’re in the fight business and not just a t-shirt company then they’re looked at as a competitor, which puts the Xtreme Couture clothing brand that they manufacture in competition with the UFC as well…I’ve spent going on 12 years developing the reputation and the name of Xtreme Couture and Affliction helped build that, distribute that, manufacture that and build it into a reputable clothing line…the crossover is where things get a little hazy, so I don’t know what’s going to happen with that."
Time will only tell how things work out between Couture and Affliction. Here’s a video on a more recent interview with The Natural as he elaborates more on the situation. He also goes on to talk about his UFC 91 preparation and on the former UFC fighter Matt Lindland who loses to VanOrman during their political race: