The Ace of Our Hearts: Farewell, Rich Franklin

Well, the speculation over when Rich Franklin will fight again can finally end.

It was announced yesterday in an article penned by the former UFC Middleweight Champion for The Players’ Tribune that he will not be returning to the UFC for ONE…MORE…MATCH…and is retiring from active competition.

Well, it’s not a “retirement”, per se, at least not according to him. Retirement is a scary word for a professional athlete, and understandably so. No, instead he has “…[C]losed one chapter of [his] life and begun another.”

Okay, Rich. Whatever makes it easier for you.

This really shouldn’t come as too much of a shock, to Rich or anybody else, as he’s had one foot out the door for years now. Rich’s last fight was a knockout loss to former Strikeforce champion Cung Le in the UFC’s debut in China back in November 2012. Rich decided to take a hiatus from fighting after the loss, during which he accepted an executive position with the Singapore-based MMA promotion ONE Championship, promoting MMA in Southeast Asia and making Matt Hume feel better about being the only other white guy working over there.

Since becoming a Vice President in April 2014, Rich has spent a lot of time overseas, and, while he likes to casually mention that there is one fight left on his UFC deal and that he’d really like to honor that fight and finish out his contract, the reality is there’s no way he can do so with the responsibilities he has now. With all the travel he does on a regular basis between the US and Asia, he doesn’t have time to fit in a full fight camp, not without suspending his ONE duties, which he doesn’t seem to have any interest in doing.

So, with that in mind, it’s probably for the best that he just retire and end the notion of seeking one last fight and the thrill of one last victory, even if he can taste it and smell it, especially considering what his nose has been through during the course of his MMA career.

So what kind of legacy does Rich leave behind? Well, for fans of the original UFC (back when “JUST BLEED” was a job requirement), as well as many of the newer fans who only saw the tail end of Ace’s run, where he traded wins and losses for three years, he may not mean a whole lot.

But for the fans of my generation, the original TUF generation? Rich was a big part of the reason I became a fan of the sport. He, along with Chuck Liddell, Randy Couture, and Matt Hughes, is what got me hooked on the sport and is part of the reason I continue to watch over a decade after I first saw him compete back in April 2005 on the night that everything changed for the UFC.

Everyone remembers when Forrest Griffin and Stephan Bonnar went at it for fifteen minutes with a UFC contract on the line at the original Ultimate Fighter Finale. What some may not remember was that those two weren’t the main event of the show. The main event was Ken Shamrock, making his return after vanquishing Kimo Leopoldo in a fight that actually headlined a UFC Payperview in 2004 (not 1994, 2004), against the 19-1 (1 no contest) Franklin.

UFC could see the star potential Franklin had. They gave him a huge spotlight to show off what he could do in front of one the largest viewing audiences UFC had ever seen up to that point, presenting their first live fight card on Spike TV, and Franklin didn’t disappoint. He made it look like the sport had past Ken by, which it had, by defeating him with strikes in under 3 minutes.

UFC took the momentum Rich had built in that fight and booked him in a UFC Middleweight Championship fight with the late Evan Tanner. Rich would win that fight due to a doctor stoppage in the fourth round to become champion, a distinction he would hold for two years before some Brazilian dude named Anderson Silva knocked him off his perch. Or kneed him. I guess that would be the more appropriate word to use here.

Rich, as champion, presented something unique in the combat sports world. He was a man who was not only college educated, he studied education and became a teacher. That’s right. Among all the “barbarians” and “savages” that people chose to label mixed martial arts fighters as in the late 1990s and early 2000s, here was a man who would go from training and getting paid to get punched in the face at night to teaching math at a Cincinnati high school during the day.

Not only was Rich a good-looking, well-spoken man, he was an excellent example of how intelligent the sport, its athletes, and its fans, can be, and he represented the sport at a time when it needed all the credibility it could get. The sport would have likely survived the dark ages without Rich Franklin, but it definitely helped having a guy like him on our side as our champion.

As a fighter, he was pretty good too. Yeah, looking at his resume now, it doesn’t seem so impressive. I mean, Marvin Eastman? Jorge Rivera? Travis Lutter? Those don’t seem so great nowadays, even though some of those fighters were top guys back in the day, but he did also beat guys like Chuck Liddell, Wanderlei Silva, Yushin Okami, and Matt Hamill. Those aren’t bad, right? Right?

Well, whatever your opinion of Rich Franklin is and however you choose to remember his career, I remember him as a great man and a great fighter who helped the UFC reach new levels of popularity and credibility at a time when it needed it the most, as well as the man who paved the way for the most dominant champion in UFC history to reign supreme. He was a man who represented the ideal all fighters should strive for, through equal parts natural skill, hard work, and education. Plus, he never failed a drug test, which automatically qualifies him for sainthood these days.

So, I say congrats on a wonderful career, Rich Franklin. You provided the fans with a lot of great entertainment over the years. Thanks for the memories and I look forward to seeing you again when you are inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame.

Also, when are you going to bring back the Lloyd Christmas haircut? I bet Asian fans would love the Angry Jim Carrey look. You know. ALL RIGHTY THEN and etc.

No, you’re mixing up your Jim Carrey movie references. SMOKIN’! THE PEN IS BLUE! TELL THE FAT LADY SHE’S ON IN FIVE!

Evan Zivin has been writing for 411 MMA since May of 2013. Evan loves the sport, and likes to takes a lighthearted look at the world of MMA in his writing…usually.