Franklin returns to 205 to swim with the sharks
Rich Franklin laughed almost as soon as the question was asked. And for the record, that question was, ‘Is it exciting moving back to a division where most of mixed martial arts’ superstars currently reside?’
“I basically just threw myself in a pool of sharks,” said the former UFC middleweight champion, who on Saturday night will return to the light heavyweight division for the first time in over three years to take on Matt Hamill at UFC 88 in Atlanta. “How exciting is that?”
Well, it’s exciting for us watching.
“There you go,” said Franklin. “I guess the answer to that question is ‘does Rich Franklin like swimming with the sharks?’”
That response will start to be generated this weekend, and if Franklin gets by the talented but still raw Hamill, the names that could find the Cincinnati’s native’s dance card read like a Who’s Who of the sport. But perhaps most importantly, one of those names isn’t the reigning 185-pound champion, Anderson Silva, who took Franklin’s title in 2006 and then defended it against him a year later. Staying at middleweight left Franklin with little to gain other than a regular paycheck. For a fierce competitor who wants to be the champion and the best in his weight class, there probably wasn’t going to be a third Silva fight anytime soon.
“(UFC matchmaker) Joe (Silva) had talked to me about moving to 205 right after my second (Anderson) Silva loss, and nobody forced me to make this decision, but they were very encouraging about me moving to 205, the reason being is that they’re not interested in doing Franklin-Silva III,” said Franklin. “They don’t think that it would really sell, and I would still have to put some wins together to get there anyway. In the meantime, they don’t want me fighting the top contenders because there’s the possibility of me eliminating title fights. So really, I’m stuck in a position of fighting guys who just lost their title shot to Anderson, and it leaves me in a position in the weight class where I don’t have a whole lot to look forward to other than my next fight. So at least the decision to move to 205 is more proactive. I have something to shoot for, I can make a possible title run if I can put a few wins together here, and I’m not just some gatekeeper.”
But when Franklin made his decision to jump back to 205 pounds, he was presented with an interesting dilemma in the form of Hamill, a buddy who he trained with briefly a few years ago and who he remained friends with.
“I actually met Matt through my boxing coach, Rob Radford,” recalled Franklin. “At the time, I was at the point in my career where I realized that I needed to start investing more time in my wrestling. Rob had invited several wrestlers into his gym to work with me, and after working with a couple of guys, nobody was really fitting real well. Then I worked with Matt, and he was clearly the best wrestler that I had ever worked with at the time. So I wanted to continue working with him, but he ended up relocating to New York for a little while, and he came back, but it was for a very short period of time, and then he had to leave for the show (The Ultimate Fighter 3). We only trained together maybe half a dozen times at the most, but we kept in contact and there was a friendship built there.”
So when he was offered Hamill as his first opponent in his return to light heavyweight, It came as a bit of a surprise to Franklin.
“When Joe (Silva) brought the fight to me, I said to him, ‘well, it’s kind of a difficult fight (personally), but if you present it to his camp and they accept it, then I guess it’s a go,’” he said. “So he took it to their camp, and I’m sure they had just as much trouble deliberating over this as I did, and then they accepted the fight and that’s how the ball got rolling.”
And while it’s an intriguing bout from a stylistic standpoint, in the great scheme of things, it’s a win-win for Hamill. If he beats Franklin, he skyrockets up the ranks in terms of respect and visibility, while if he loses competitively, he’s still young enough in the game where he can chalk it up to experience, learn from it, and not lose much stature. Franklin doesn’t necessarily see it that way; in fact, he believes that when it comes to Saturday night, there may be more questions about him than Hamill.
“I’m making a jump here to the 205 pound weight class, and for me, the way I’m viewing this fight, and I’m not sure if many other people do, but Matt has had an impressive track record in the UFC to this point,” said Franklin. “Aside from the Michael Bisping fight, which many people would contest, he basically has an undefeated record, he’s looked impressive in the 205-pound division, and for me moving up to 205 pounds from 185, this is a tough test as to whether I’ll be able to handle that weight division or not.”
He handled it pretty well the first go round, going 15-1 (1 NC), with his only loss coming to current UFC light heavyweight standout Lyoto Machida. But that was a long time ago, said Franklin, who jumped to middleweight for the first time against Jorge Rivera in October of 2004, and full-time after he stopped Ken Shamrock in a light heavy bout in April of 2005.
“When you spend as much time as I have at 185 pounds, I basically tore myself down to a 185 pound fighter,” he explains. “So now I’m going through the process of putting weight back on to make myself the 205 pound fighter that I once was. I always hit the weights hard, and a lot of people have seen my youtube videos with Mike (Ferguson) at the Powerstation, but basically, it really does boil down to nutrition, and I just have to make sure that I’m taking in more calories than I’m burning. And that’s a difficult thing to do. At first when I started training for this fight, I was putting on weight, and everything was fine. But when I started getting down to the nitty-gritty of the fight and hitting all my two-a-days and double sessions as many times a week as I do, it’s difficult to make sure that you’re eating more than you’re burning constantly.”
“My primary concern when I’m fighting at 185 is making weight,” Franklin continues. “I meticulously weigh my food out and now when I weigh my food out, I’m doing it to make sure I’m eating enough food. It’s a completely, completely different process now. I’ve
put a little more red meat in my nutrition program, and I’m not worrying about my weight. Come weigh-in day, I’ll have to cut four, maybe five pounds at the most. I’ll probably fight somewhere around 210 and I assume I’ll be giving up around half a dozen pounds to Matt. But that’s to be expected. Hopefully between each fight I can take some down time, not train as hard, focus on putting on some more muscle, and worry about drilling more rather than burning as many calories as I usually do, if I’m gonna make a home at 205.”
And if he does decide to stick around with the likes of Griffin, Liddell, Evans, Jackson, (Wanderlei) Silva, Machida, and Rua, the list of fan-friendly matchups are almost endless. It would mean a renaissance of sorts for the 33-year old Franklin, who by excelling at light heavyweight would show that he is far from finished at a top-flight fighter.
“People in this world assume that once you’ve earned the title, been the main event, and been in the limelight and then lost it that now you’re done,” he said. “I’m not done. I can still put on exciting fights, the fans love watching me fight, I love to compete still, and I can move to 205 and see what I can do there. I don’t mind not being the main event, I don’t mind not having to do 5,000 interviews – now I only have 4,999 because I’m not nearly important as I once was. (Laughs) To me, it’s all the same – I have fans who still love me and critics who hate me. It will be that way whether I’m a titleholder or not, so in between now and then, I’m just trying to put on good fights, entertain people, and enjoy doing what I do.”
Hate Rich Franklin? That could be deemed sacrilegious in some quarters. How could one of this era’s most popular fighters have critics who hate him?
“Everybody has haters,” he said. “I was watching (comedian) Katt Williams. He said Jesus only had 12 friends and he had a hater, and he (Jesus) was perfect. Judas threw him under the bus. So it doesn’t matter what you do in life, there are gonna be people who don’t like you.”
Maybe so, but generally, when it comes to fan favorites, Franklin’s probably going to be on most top ten lists, a phenomenon that still intrigues him, given his tendency to walk away from the spotlight while others run to it.
“I really just do not like being the center of attention,” he admits. “It’s easy for me to be the center of attention when I’m fighting because that’s what I’m there to do – I’m there to compete, I answer my questions after the fight, I go to the press conferences, and it’s all about the fighting. But if you stuck me in the middle of a party and said ‘Rich, entertain these people, sing some karaoke and be the life of the party,’ I’m not that guy, and I don’t like being that guy. I really feel that in my life, since I’m not attention hungry, I get enough attention as is, so when I’m not dealing with the fight game, I want other people to get a chance to get their attention; there’s already enough attention on me.”
More’s coming though. And even while Franklin claims that he “would have made a better stagehand than the lead actor in the play,” the next 12 months will likely see him play a starring role in some of the light heavyweight division’s most exciting bouts. And that’s the type of attention he would probably be able to deal with.
