Dear Lord, UFC Hall Of Famer May Continue To Fight
Chuck Liddell’s comeback after eight years of hiatus didn’t go as planned.
Former UFC light heavyweight champion Chuck Liddell suffered a first-round knockout loss to long-time rival and fellow UFC Hall of Famer Tito Ortiz in a trilogy bout on Saturday night (Nov 24, 2018) under the inaugural Golden Boy MMA main event from inside The Forum in Inglewood, California.
Liddell 48, look utterly terrible for the entirety of the fight and Ortiz manage to hurt Liddell with a combination of punches. Liddell last fought back in June of 2010 when he suffered a knockout loss to Rich Franklin at UFC 115 and hadn’t won a fight since 2007.
Despite the loss, ‘the Iceman’ said he enjoyed the experience of returning to the competition and hasn’t ruled out anything regarding his MMA future at a post-fight press conference.
“I don’t want to think about that right now,” Liddell said when asked if that was it (via MMA Fighting). “I mean, I’m not in the right state of mind to really talk about whether or not I’m done or not. But I felt good out there and I had fun, so we’ll see.”
“I feel great right now,” he added later. “I mean, I’m fine. I don’t feel bad. I don’t think it was a bad knockout. I was able to answer all of the questions in the corner right away when they came up and asked me, ‘Where do you live? Where are we?’ All of the questions, I was able to answer them all right away, so I’m fine.”
It’s very rare in MMA combat sports that notable fighters stick to their retirements. Like Georges St-Pierre who returned to Octagon after four years of hiatus to take on Michael Bisping at UFC 217. Then Tito Ortiz who retired following a loss to Forrest Griffin for the second time. Well, retirement didn’t last long and ‘The Huntington Beach Bad Boy” return to the sports two years later to join Bellator MMA promotion.
Liddell said he’s not sure about his next move but his battle against Ortiz rekindle a passion in him, and he plans on staying in the gym for the foreseeable future. Whether for himself or to train other fighters.
“The one takeaway I have from this is that I will definitely be in a training camp again,” Liddell said. “I don’t know if it’ll be for me or for someone else, but I miss being in the gym and getting ready for a fight, or getting someone else ready for a fight. So I will now be more involved in training guys — at least training guys if not fighting, but for sure training guys.”
For now, enjoy a blast from past when Liddell was in his prime.
