« UFC 97 Redemption (4/18 Montreal) card line-up | Home | Anderson Silva is no longer safe as a UFC PPV main eventer »
UFC 97: Chuck Liddell’s Fait accompli
By Zach Arnold | April 18, 2009
In both the English and French-written media coverage of the event, the word ‘retirement’ is the one being used often the most. RDS, Quebec’s French-language version of TSN or ESPN, ran with the headline “The Iceman is frozen” after Mauricio Shogun knocked out Liddell in R1 on Saturday night in Montreal at the Bell Centre. Making Liddell’s recent losing streak anguishing to watch is seeing the punishment he is taking after some brutal knockouts from the likes of Rampage Jackson and Rashad Evans.
The ghosts of PRIDE’s past are back in full force at 205 pounds — Shogun and Rampage. Forrest Griffin and Rashad Evans are the ghosts of TUF’s past. Shogun’s victory gives UFC many new matchmaking options that they previously didn’t have to offer, and Liddell’s loss all but cements him into either retirement or a legends match against Randy Couture. If Liddell moves to heavyweight, he will have to contend with the likes of Brock Lesnar and Shane Carwin. A match against Lesnar might draw some attention, but the odds would be heavily stacked in favor of Lesnar to win the fight.
Some big questions now have risen to the surface about the careers of both Frank Shamrock and Chuck Liddell.
Topics: Canada, Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 17 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
His chin is gone.
He ate shots harder than that hundreds of times just to trade back for a harder bomb in reverse.
He used to eat them like hotcakes!
His chin cant hold up to his old style any more, and he’s to old to change apparently.
I love the iceman to death, and he’s always a legend to me.
But he got his work in, and its over now as far as the elite level IMO.
I hope Chuck retires. His reflexes aren’t fast enough anymore. I don’t want him to be a vegetable
If that was indeed Chuck Liddell’s last MMA fight, he had an incredible career and provided MMA fans with a lot of great memories.
Here’s to Chuck going to Japan and facing Bob Sapp or Cro Cop.
That’s not going to happen. I don’t think he would want to do that, and even if he did, he’s under long-term Zuffa contract.
Liddell could fight in Japan — and as long as the promotion willing to book him isn’t making revenue off of him in the States, it would be tough for Zuffa to stop him from fighting. They would have to file a lawsuit in Japan — which would take too much time and $$$.
I’m sure K-1 could always offer a 50/50 split with UFC if UFC was convinced that Chuck was going to fight no matter what — at least they’d get a piece of the action.
Chuck flopping around in japan =
Lol!
The “Anti-spam word” is worked.
Liddell will most likely fight again, think of the UFC as a promo machine..
Same with Anderson Silva, just keeps people talking, it’s great (for their brand) even though it was horrible to watch.
Remember those words.
“Liddell will most likely fight again,…”
He needs to NOT!
He needs to take a year off and tink aboot it!
But he will.
Your unfortunately for the chuckster right!
While the UFC is doing the right thing by pressuring Chuck Liddell to retire before he suffers permanent injury, all of this talk in the post-fight press conference from the UFC that they “don’t let guys hang around longer than they should” is a joke. The way they’re handling Chuck Liddell is the exception for them, not the norm.
After all, they booked a badly washed up Ken Shamrock in a squash match against Tito Ortiz in 2006, and then they booked him in another squash match against Ortiz later in 2006.
Then they booked a badly washed up Mark Coleman to fight Brock Lesnar in 2008, then Coleman tore his MCL in training, then they booked Coleman to fight Shogun, and then even after looking horrible and losing in that fight, they booked Coleman again, in a prelim fight against Stephan Bonnar.
Cmon Zach…you really think Zuffa is going to let Chuck fight anywhere else at this point? They’ll feed him another grappler in 6 months and he’ll have a proper retirement.
Chuck always has the possibility of becoming a doorman at Red Rock Casino/Resort. Well, unless Station defaults, I suppose….
That hook that Chuck got caught with started from 8 feet away. Bad news for a guy who likes to fight standup fights to not be able to deal with and react to that punch.
I really expect Liddell to be a mumbler from this point on and start to sound more and more like many old boxers.
His career is dead now. If he fought again in 6 months for the UFC nobody would pay to see that. But with nostalgia factored in after a few years away, that might get some buys.
But Liddell in the UFC’s heavyweight division is just a disaster waiting to happen. I’m not squeamish, but thinking of him fighting a top HW makes me squeamish. A fight with Lesnar would be better suited for Faces Of Death, not a UFC pay-per-view. I think even a freak show fight with Bob “The Anime Killer” Sapp could get ugly for him.
A fight with Lesnar makes perfect sense to revitalize Brock’s career should he somehow lose to Mir in the rematch. Not saying that would be good for Chuck’s health, just that it would probably sell.
“I really expect Liddell to be a mumbler from this point on …”
From this point on?
Thats all chuck ever does.
Which is kind of scary if you think aboot it because you might not notice accumulating damage until it got bad enough.
A fight with Lesnar was what they were looking to build towards after Couture lost to Lesnar. The UFC proposed Couture vs. Liddell IV as a heavyweight fight, but neither of them were particularly interested in fighting the other for the fourth time.