Intangibles the attraction for Couture-Coleman

Jake Rossen is one of best MMA reporters and bloggers in the business. As always his primers serve as a valuable quick-hit information tool to generate interest in an upcoming event. He makes a fair point in his UFC 109 primer over the lack of fan enthusiasm over a card headlined by two fighters in their mid 40s.

"If fan enthusiasm is dull for Saturday's card, it might be blamed on mismeasured expectations: Standards that apply to 25-year-olds should not be heaped on men nearing 50 who have fought as frequently as some athletes have sparred. If you expect to watch Couture-Coleman and be dazzled by radical, hyper attacks, you will quickly grow disappointed; if you accept that two veterans will engage in a game in which nasty tricks and a takedown or two can alter the outcome, you probably will walk away satisfied."

Here's a reason to actually look forward to this fight: Sometimes when two old, great warriors tangle, you watch a war of attrition where ultimately heart and guts trumps any diminished skills. I recall the Thomas Hearns-Sugar Ray Leonard rematch in 1989. Since it was eight long years after the classic contest that Leonard won with a TKo in the 14th round, many fans looked at the ridiculously overdue rematch as one between two dinosaurs way past their prime. What both Hearns and Leonard proved was that, to quote analyst Larry Merchant during the broadcast, "there's no quit in either of these great warriors."

I also look back at Couture's bout with Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira. Minotauro is only 33 years old, but a veteran of 38 MMA fights who entered the bout off the TKO loss to Frank Mir that left most to wonder how much he had left in the tank. Not only did Nogueira win, it was UFC 102's Fight of the Night.

Moral of the story: Don't expect to be blown away by Couture-Coleman, but watch it with an open mind and know that you're getting the privilege of seeing two active Hall of Famers defy age and provide a fight not aesthetically pleasing, but a blood-and-guts battle of wills which sometimes turn out the better story to be told.