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MIDDLETOWN — Dr. David Youtsler was running around answering phones at his chiropractic business on a cold and snowy Monday morning. Periodically, he'd check in on his prized patient, former Ultimate Fighting Championship middleweight title-holder Rich Franklin.

"Where's your help?" Franklin asked while using a cold laser to reduce soreness in his arm.

"She said she was stuck in Indianapolis from the snow," Youtsler said.

While the snow might have kept others from work, Franklin is all about business. You see, the words "former middleweight champion" don't ring very well with him.

The 6-foot-1, 185-pound Franklin makes his return to the UFC's octagon-shaped caged ring March 3 for UFC 68: The Uprising at Nationwide Arena in Columbus. Franklin will take a 22-2 record into his nontitle bout against fast-rising Canadian Jason MacDonald (18-7-0). Current heavyweight champ Tim Sylvia and former welterweight champ Matt Hughes also are on the card.

It's the UFC's first event in Ohio.

"Yeah, I'm excited about fighting in Ohio, but ultimately it doesn't make a whole lot of difference where I'm fighting," Franklin said as he ran the laser over his ankle. "The good thing about being in Ohio is that my family and friends can come out to see the fight. But if I wasn't in Ohio, I know they would all be watching me on pay-per-view."

After losing the middleweight title in his last fight — an October TKO loss to reigning champ Anderson "The Spider" Silva in Las Vegas — Franklin appears ready to redeem himself.

"Any time you lose, it's a difficult thing," said Franklin, a West Chester Twp. resident. "You ask yourself why you lost, or how that could happen, what you did wrong in your training, you ask all of that stuff."

After a brief session with Youtsler, Franklin and fighting friend Jorge Gurgel are off to the Powerstation Gym, where trainer Mike Ferguson puts the two through an intense speed-lifting workout.

With Ferguson barking orders, the two fighters sprint from nine different weight machines doing 15 repetitions on each apparatus. Ferguson then ups the weights and has the men doing as many as 50 reps.

Forty-six nonstop minutes of pain later, with Franklin and Gurgel soaked in sweat, the session ends.

"I tell my clients that I wouldn't put them through a workout that I couldn't do, and that includes baseball players, football players and boxers," said Ferguson, a 58-year-old chiseled veteran who served two stints in Vietnam. "But these guys? Nobody hangs with these guys, and that includes me."

Franklin said he's feeling good, even better than he did before his last fight.

"At this stage in the game, with five weeks left before the fight, I'm right on schedule," Franklin said. "I'm in great shape and I'm excited about getting back in the cage."

Contact this reporter at (513) 705-2851

or jbombatch@coxohio.com.

Ticket info

Tickets for UFC 68: The Uprising, to be held March 3, are on sale at the Nationwide Arena Ticket Office, all Ticketmaster locations, at ufc.com or by phone at (937) 228-2323.