Mike Chiappetta • E-mail

Randy “The Natural” Couture’s autobiography was released this week, and NBCSports.com had a chance to catch up with the mixed martial arts legend after a book signing earlier this week.

Couture was in good spirits as he signed copies of his book “Becoming the Natural,” co-written with Sherdog.com editor Loretta Hunt, at a Borders bookstore on Wall Street in New York City.

It’s been a long and winding journey for Couture, who gives readers insight into his life, including several broken relationships and others that were healed in time.

"It was an interesting experience," he said. "It was a chance to look back and re-live some things. It was fun looking back at some old fights, not as fun to look back at some things that went wrong. But overall, I think it was positive and a chance to give fans a chance to know what shaped me."

Couture’s story is in some ways like the story of the sport itself, often underappreciated and ignored, but always fighting on with the belief that bigger things lay ahead.

Legal disputes with UFC aside, Couture is one of the classiest people in the sport, and even fans who are familiar with his by-the-bootstraps work ethic will enjoy re-living his adventures from his days in the military to becoming “the Natural.”

For a video clip from our interview, scroll down to the bottom.

Johnson-Burns appeal coming
Anthony Johnson suffered a controversial TKO loss to Kevin Burns at last weekend’s UFC event, but his camp fully plans to appeal. Johnson appeared to be winning the fight in the third round when Burns caught him with fingers to the eye during an exchange.

Johnson immediately fell down, and although Burns hesitated, the referee apparently didn't see the illegal strike, and Burns followed up on the ground for a TKO.

NBCSports.com spoke with his agent, Ken Pavia, who said an appeal is imminent.

“I think we’ve found some persuasive evidence for an appeal,” he said. “Initially, we were told there’s not a provision that would empower [the Nevada State Athletic Commission] to overturn the decision, but we think we found some evidence to the contrary.”

Pavia said he expects to file the protest within a week.

Affliction Pay
A lot of eyebrows were raised in the last few days when fighter pay was released for the Affliction: Banned card, and Tim Sylvia was revealed as the fighter with the biggest salary.

At $800,000, Sylvia’s salary was almost three times the size of that earned by his opponent Fedor Emelianenko ($300,000).

But a source told NBCSports.com that Emelianenko received a sizable part of his Affliction contract up front in the form of a signing bonus, and added that Emelianenko also owns the rights to his fight footage in several European countries. That second part may not mean much right now but if Affliction chooses to hold an event in Europe, they would have to pay him for the footage.

That also explains why “M-1 Global” was on the Affliction mats. If M-1, a European fight company headed by Emelianenko’s manager Vadim Finkelstein, holds an event in Europe, they can use the Affliction footage to sell their show.

TapouT signs Kimbo
MMA apparel industry leader TapouT announced that they signed Elite XC’s Kimbo Slice to an exclusive deal.

“Kimbo is the real deal,” said Mask, TapouT Founder in a press release.  “He is the ultimate underdog who kept his nose to the grindstone and rose up to become one of the most well-known MMA fighters out there.”

Kimbo remains unbeaten in MMA at 3-0, and fought in the main event of EliteXC: Primetime, the first ever event on primetime network TV, defeating James Thompson.

He is expected to fight again in October.

In other Tapout news, the second season of the TapouT show will debut on July 30 at 10 pm on Versus.

The season will have 10 new episodes.

Spike to rebroadcast UFC 84 against EliteXC
Never content to let an adversary get the spotlight to itself, the UFC and Spike TV will present UFC 84: Penn vs. Sherk on Saturday night to combat Elite XC’s live CBS event.

The event, which took place in May, featured the long-awaited grudge match between B.J. Penn and Sean Sherk in the main event. Other matches on the card included Tito Ortiz’s likely octagon swan song against Lyoto Machida, and Wanderlei Silva against Keith Jardine.

IFL in its final days
The International Fight League, which was the first MMA organization to sign a deal with a network -- albeit the fledgling MyNetworkTV, seems to be on its last legs. In recent days, several fighters have signed with the UFC -- its rumored buyer -- including its middleweight champ Dan Miller.

Just six weeks ago, the IFL canceled an upcoming show in the hopes of finding a partner or buyer that would allow it to continue operations.

At the time, IFL CEO Jay Larkin made a point of saying, "We consider fighters our primary asset. If we let them get cherry-picked, we won't have much left but a couple of desks and a phone."

With many of its best fighters already out the door, it appears the end is near.

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