One of the most popular UFC fighters in recent history may well be beginning the final phase of his successful career.
Former UFC middleweight champion and current light-heavyweight contender Rich Franklin (25-4 MMA, 12-3 UFC) recently signed a new six-fight contract with the organization, and he told MMAjunkie.com Radio (www.mmajunkie.com/radio) that it could potentially be his final deal with the UFC.
"This six-fight contract could possibly take me to the end of my career," Franklin said. "It just depends on the pace of the fights."
The first bout will come in September, as Franklin was recently announced as the headliner of UFC 103 in Dallas in a rematch with Dan Henderson. Franklin said he had actually hoped to take some time off following his June win over Wanderlei Silva.
"I was actually planning on some downtime," Franklin admitted. "It's just that for me, I'm constantly going, going, going, going. Part of what I've done here, being in Cincinnati, is I've started doing some of my training up in Seattle. I've been training with Matt Hume. I take Rob Radford, my boxing coach, up there with me and all that. I still work with my coaches here in Cincinnati, but when I'm on the road - you know being on the road a lot is difficult.
"In the end, when you're on the road like that all the time, it wears you down. At some point in time you want to be able to take a break, be around your family, and not care about laying my food out on the measuring scale in the kitchen, and being able to wake up in the morning and say, 'What do I want to do today besides train?'"
Despite his original intentions, Franklin said when the UFC approached him about headlining the September card, he never hesitated. And while he didn't openly request a chance to revisit the hotly debated split-decision loss to Henderson, Franklin said he was just fine with the matchup.
"Anybody that had a 205-pound ranking was basically tied up with a fight - they were contracted to fight," Franklin said. "You can run through the 205-pound weight class, and I know on the forums and stuff - I don't read any of this, I just catch this stuff word of mouth - but I know that there was a thread about who I could possibly fight, and it listed like all of the 205-pound fighters that were contracted with an opponent right now, and basically it left absolutely nobody in the weight class for me. Although the UFC had approached me about fighting in September and possibly headlining that event and all that kind of stuff, they were really scrambling for what they were going to do about a possible opponent.
"I never really approached the UFC about [a rematch], but I think I've been outspoken about the fact that I thought I won the fight the first time and all that kind of stuff. I think from their end, they were looking for a good matchup. I know we're going to go head-to-head with the (Floyd) Mayweather (boxing) fight, and [the UFC] needed a big fight. You put me up against just a no-name 205-pound fighter, it's not going to draw a lot of public attention, and they needed something, I guess, and they come up with the idea of Henderson."
While several rumors pointed to a few recent Twitter messages from UFC president Dana White and former light heavyweight champion Tito Ortiz as proof that "The Huntington Beach Bad Boy" could face Franklin in September, "Ace" said the free agent was never discussed as a potential opponent.
"That was not discussed with me," Franklin said. "I don't know on that end what the UFC has done as far as trying to bring Tito back or anything like that."
Instead, Franklin will once again set his sights on Henderson. And though the 34-year-old believes his new deal may be his final one, don't expect to see him at anything less than 100 percent in the bout.
"Physically I feel great," Franklin said. "I wake up on a daily basis and I get right out of bed. I could hope out of bed and start jogging immediately without any warmup or anything like that. I'm 34 years old. I don't feel like a 34-year-old athlete, I guess.
"I feel good, but mentally I've got my eyes on other things. When I was 24 years old, all I did was eat, sleep, drink and dream about fighting. That's it. Now I wake up, and I like to sit down on my drum set for a little while, and there are other things that I want to do."
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