Rich Franklin Speaks Out on Recent Catchweight Fights

There are some interesting quotes from Rich Franklin that are making their way around the web. The National Post recently spoke to Franklin regarding a number of things, including his recent catchweight fights against Wanderlei Silva and Vitor Belfort. Franklin has never been one to complain, make excuses, or demonstrate poor sportsmanship so these quotes should not be taken out of context. Instead, it should show the fans how dedicated Franklin is to his career in MMA.

The UFC asked me to fight the catchweight fights to help Silva and Belfort make the drop down to 185 pounds. But now I’ve lost my ranking at 185 and 205. It’s crazy — I can headline a card and not be top-10 ranked. I took the Belfort fight because Dana called and asked me, even though I wasn’t quite where I needed to be physically or mentally. Now, I’m not making excuses, that’s just the nature of the fight game.

It will be interesting to see where Franklin ends up in 2010. Despite being placed outside of the top 10 rankings on many lists, I still believe that he is a top contender. The problem with Franklin’s ranking is that we don’t quite know where he stands at this point in time. He’s already proven that he can’t get to that next level at middleweight to recapture the title from Anderson Silva, and he hasn’t fought top competition at light heavyweight yet. Next year will prove to be an important one for Rich Franklin.