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Kelvin Hunt: Why Chuck Liddell should move to the heavyweight division
By Zach Arnold | July 14, 2008
The UFC Light Heavyweight division is THE best division in all of MMA. Many new faces have emerged since this time last year… with a few fighters with familiar names that are no longer present. As we all know, the UFC’s HW division is lacking something. The one guy (Brandon Vera) they were pushing hard just lost back-to-back fights (albeit the second one was controversial) and has now moved down to the LHW division. Zuffa needs a star at HW and Chuck Liddell is the man for the job. Below are a list of possible match-ups at LHW…. followed by a list of match-ups Liddell has at HW.
#1. Chuck Liddell vs. Forrest Griffin – If Liddell gets by Rashad Evans at UFC 88… this is more than likely going to be his next fight (no matter how much I disagree with it). It would feature two of the UFC’s poster boys that would do good #’s on the PPV side of things. It would also give Liddell the opportunity to become champion of the LHW division once again.
#2. Chuck Liddell vs. Wanderlei Silva II – The first fight was a standup war… and I’m sure the second bout would be no different.
#3. Chuck Liddell vs. Rampage Jackson III – Rampage already has two very decisive wins over Liddell and personally I wouldn’t care to see a third match. However, I’m sure the UFC hype machine could somehow promote a 3rd match, especially if Liddell became champ again. But then again, since Rampage mauls him everytime time… I’m not sure they’d book that one at this point.
#4. Chuck Liddell vs. Lyoto Machida – Realistically, nobody wants to see this fight because it would be the battle of two counter-strikers. However, if Machida keeps winning, then it’s inevitable that Liddell will face him at some point unless he moves up to HW.
#5. Chuck Liddell vs. Keith Jardine II – Since Wanderlei Silva just ran through Jardine like a bottle of grandma’s castor oil, all the luster of this re-match is gone. Jardine beat Liddell decisively in the first match (yes, the judges sucked in that one as well).
Honorable Mention – Liddell/Thiago Silva… however, Silva a bit overrated in my honest opinion…he must fight some upper tier guy’s before I put him on the list.
Matches at Heavyweight
#1. Chuck Liddell vs. Brock Lesnar – This match-up is THE biggest PPV draw that the UFC could put together right now. The buyrate would be extraordinary, especially if Lesnar gets by Heath Herring next month. All the wrestling fans that could have possibly alienated Lesnar after losing to Mir would be right back on the bandwagon.
#2. Chuck Liddell vs. Cheick Kongo – A standup war… nothing more… nothing less.
#3. Chuck Liddell vs. Antonio “Big Nog” Nogueira – Nogueira takes TONS of punishment, and it would be a classic striker vs. grappler matchup. If Big Nog pulled off the win, he would become an instant star in America.
#4. Chuck Liddell vs. Gabriel Gonzaga – Gonzaga was the next big thing before getting derailed with back to back losses. He has decent standup and is a world class grappler/BJJ guy (who got a big response at the weigh in’s of UFC 86).
#5. Chuck Liddell vs. Shane Carwin – Liddell kills wrestlers at LHW, but would that streak continue in the HW division? Carwin won his UFC debut via one punch K. With Liddell aging quickly, this could be a fight for Carwin to make a name for himself and for Zuffa to build a new star.
Final thoughts
Surely, there are some match-ups I may have left off… However, if Zuffa put Liddell at HW he would be more beneficial to the company. He’s stated that he is open to moving up in weight so why not make that happen? There are some very intriguing matchups there… THE biggest PPV fight is there… and he could possibly become the only guy besides Randy Couture/BJ Penn to hold titles in two weight classes. Furthermore, since he destroyed Couture twice, I think they could throw away that interim description they are currently using with Big Nog. (I know they are using it because of the lawsuit). So, unless Zuffa wants to feed us Liddell re-match after re-match, they need to make this move if Rashad Evans beats him at UFC 88.
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC | 8 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
My opinion its time to give guys who are undefeated a chance to rightfully get whats theres.but as you stated that is not very profitable, for machita and
silva are not very marketable right know.i am very intersted in the wins that are coming up soon with the fights i am seeing in the future so i am excited.
I am also very upset with what dana white and the big wigs at zuffa are doing.It is so disrespectful of them to mess with the affliction card and ban shirts and do these little things that 200 years ago would get you killed for being and dick.Stop trying to rule the world of fighting and welcome other organizations and let fighter fight who they want when they have done so much for you.What the hell has fedor done to the ufc to piss of white and cause all this bullshit.What does he want a million a fight or does he want to fight sambo in russia still so what let him do what he wants……I love the ufc fighters but am starting to really hate white and all the drama that is not needed….Go fedor
I agree that this is a great time for Liddell to be born again in the HW division. This is exactly what Randy Couture did (very successfully)in the beginning of 2007 when he correctly predicted that there was a void in the HW division that he could fill.
And this is a just a constructive observation…but when you publish articles on a public forum or board, they need to be proofread and edited. It’s higly IMPROPER to pluralize a noun with ” ‘s “. You did that 7x throughout the article. For example, in the second sentence, you typed “few fighter’s”…when it should actually say, “few fighters”.
My biggest issue with this is that part of the MMA scene in the US is cutting weight to drop down a weight class basically. With a guy like Chuck, he isn’t the biggest LHW in the world. Randy was bigger than him, Forrest is bigger than him, Rampage is bigger than him.
I mean, picture Chuck vs. Chieck Kong or Brock Lesnar. No, really, vusualize it.
Liddell is 6’2″ and walks around at 220lbs +…He would be competitive…but even more importantly…he would provide star power to the sorely lacking HW division.
Uh… Chuck Liddell would get killed in the heavyweight division. Look up Mirko Cro Cop. Thanks.
LOL…Cro Cop was ranked by many as the #2 HW in the world at one point in time.
Chuck does something against guys who are not “ground fighters”: He takes them down. He and Kongo would probably be horrible.
Cro Cop was ranked by many as the #2 HW in the world at one point in time.
… until he fought real competition. LOL. Sorry, no Pride VS UFC flame war here. Move along.