As a huge Rich Franklin fan I would first like to start off by saying that i am a little frustrated by Rich Franklin's absence from MMA. Rich Franklin last fought in November 2012 against Cung Le in Macao live on Fuel TV. Rich Franklin was knocked out cold by the dynamic striker within the first 2:17m of the first round. Since then we have not seen Rich Franklin in action. Franklin is one of the most talented individuals to walk into the Octogon. Rich Franklin is a former school teacher who taught himself martial arts through instructional videos before he became a professional fighter. He made his UFC debut back in 2003 against Evan Tanner at UFC 42 in April of that year. He came out and scored a spectacular TKO win. A little over two years later he would become the UFC Middleweight Champion by defeating Evan Tanner in their rematch at UFC 53. Franklin lost the title to the great Anderson Silva back in 2006 at UFC 64 after two successful title defenses. Rich Franklin has competed against some of the best athletes in the world while he was active in the sport such as Marvin Eastman, Lyoto Machida Jorge Rivera, Ken Shamrock, David Loiseau, Yushin Okami, Dan Henderson, Wanderlei Silva, Vitor Belfort, Chuck Liddell and Forest Griffin.
Whether you are a fan of Rich Franklin or not, you must appreciate Franklin's confidence to take on any man that the UFC has put in front of him. Franklin never turned down a fight and even continued to fight with injuries in fights with David Loiseau and Chuck Liddell. Franklin has stated within the last few months that he still has one more fight left on his UFC contract and he plans on completing his contract and taking that last fight. Since stating his contract status, we haven't heard much out of Franklin. If you don't follow Rich Franklin then you wouldn't know that Franklin has been busy with doing some work outside of the UFC. Franklin has been working on studying nutrition and even opened up a successful juice bar in
Beverly Hills.
In February, the UFC announced that they would be hosting a UFC Fight Night event in Cincinnati, OH and I was sure that within a few days an announcement would be made that Rich Franklin would be headlining that event for his final fight. That announcement never came and instead it was announced that Erick Silva and Matt Brown have been named as the main event for the Fight Night event. The longer he stays away from the cage the less likely that he will return. I feel that there are many interesting match ups that could be made for Rich Franklin's last fight. I honestly would watch him fight anyone at Light Heavyweight or Middleweight. Hopefully he keeps to his word and finishes the contract, but if he doesn't, it has been a pleasure to watch him compete for many years.
