Sherdog’s Top 10: Biggest Underachievers

3. Kevin Randleman

Randleman is a mainstay of underachiever lists, including finishing third on mine as well. It says a lot that a man who became UFC heavyweight champion, defended the belt and was recently inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame is an underachiever, but Randleman had the potential to be one of the 10 greatest fighters ever pound-for-pound, maybe even the greatest. To begin with, he may have been the most athletic phenom the sport has ever seen, to this very day. Everyone has seen the famous gif of him jumping out of the cage prior to one of his fights.

a GIF of Kevin Randleman jumping

He was constantly performing amazing physical feats, however. When he faced Bas Rutten for the heavyweight title at UFC 20—a fight which ended in an absolute robbery, incidentally—there was a moment when Randleman was on top, in side control, essentially laying down, and as Rutten shifted his body, Randleman leapt off the floor from his toes to maintain position. It is utterly surreal. And what do you call Randleman's breathtaking slam of Fedor Emelianenko, where he lifted him from behind as if going for a suplex, but hoisted the Russian legend so ridiculously high that he was able to turn into him for an insane head-first spike that would not only be illegal in the UFC, but would kill most men? Randleman was of course an elite wrestler, having been a two-time NCAA champion, which would have been three if academic issues hadn't made him ineligible his senior year at Ohio State. He also had surprisingly decent cardio for such a muscle-bound wrestler, especially early in his career, finishing strong in wins over Maurice Smith and Pedro Rizzo. What's talked about less is his stand-up. He had a mean left hook: fast, accurate, and powerful, which badly hurt Randy Couture over and over and outright knocked out Mirko Filipovic. He had the potential to be a great striker as well.

Yet Randleman never lived up to his amazing athletic gifts. For instance, I wrote an entire article about Randleman defending his title against a returning Couture at UFC 28. Summarized briefly, Randleman thoroughly dominated Couture in the grappling and striking. There was no comparison between them physically, but Couture came in with an excellent gameplan, stayed smart and disciplined the whole way through and had great conditioning, while Randleman did none of those things. Even according to his close mentor and father figure Mark Coleman, Randleman didn't train hard. That started to become more and more apparent as Randleman's cardio became increasingly bad over his career, and he would make awful mistakes against opponents that made it clear he hadn't prepared for them and was not even aware of their strengths and weaknesses. Neither did he ever evolve his game, even something as basic as submission defense. It's a crying shame; I wish we lived in a world where Randleman had been motivated, hard-working and focused, becoming the amazing legend he should have been. Alas, that didn't happen, and far more tragically, Randleman passed away in 2016 at the very young age of 44.

Continue Reading » Number 2