UFC 97: Chuck 'The Iceman' Liddell vs Mauricio 'Shogun' Rua

Holy crap!!! All I can say is that Shogun must train and get in better shape cuz if he doesn;t…lights out for him :(
WAR SHOGUN!!!

Last nights Rua v Coleman fight – was horrible… one of the worst/most frustrating fights I have seen in recent years.. What the F*UK has happened to Rua – If he doesn’t up his game considerably Chuck will Smash him!! and I hope he does… and I don’t want to see Coleman fight MMA again – he should retire and take pride in his former achievements

liddel by ko, time for the return of the iceman!

hey Shogun..you better hope you come in with good cardio next time..cuz you’ll be sleeping once the Iceman connects..

watch shogun knock liddell out lol, it will be fun seeing everyone making a 180°

Shogun has the ability to retire Chuck, but if he’s in the same shape as last night, Chuck’s going to cause serious damage to him. Chuck by 2nd round KTFO I’d say :)

I like this fight. Both Shogun and Liddell need this fight. The UFC is in a win-win situation too. One of their stars has to win in this fight. Just by Shoguns two UFC fights I would have to say that Liddell has a good chance of a KO in this fight.

Chuck is going to win this one any way he wants to.

I saw this comming

WAR SHOGUN!!!

All ya will see a good fight from the real sho that is Rua… For all ya who don’t know this (which sounds) Shogun will be training with the Axe for this fight… He’ll be the next money maker for Dana ya will see… The fucker has so many fans and it was only his second fight in the UFC…

wheres the idiot that kept going on and on about – this is the year of the shogun – haha, yeh right, even tim boatsch would tear him in half – (no diss to tim btw)

shogun will kill chuck if he comes in shape chuck cant fight anymore he went 3 rounds with jardin i mean come on shogun is way better he beat rampage so bad he was cryin watch the tape and shogun hadent fought in over a year so lay off

shogun will kill chuck if he comes in shape chuck cant fight anymore he went 3 rounds with jardin i mean come on shogun is way better he beat rampage so bad he was cryin watch the tape and shogun hadent fought in over a year so lay off

shoguns never ben ko chuck has

This fight could be even worse than the Coleman one.

It’s really starting to seem like they’re saving a bunch of title fights for UFC 100.

i think lidell will knock him out i would rather see this at ufc 96 live then rampage vs jardine

This fight is blah, i knew it was gonna happen after then announced rampage vs. jardine.

Does this mean Wanderlei Silva vs. Luiz Cane at UFC 97 or 98?

Also, this match is not that great. If Shogun was the Chute Boxe Shogun, then this fight will be a dream match for the ages, but I think this is a ploy just to get Chuck back into the title picture, and Dana White/Zuffa will hype up the Rua victory making it seem like it was pure domination, and once Chuck wins, Chcuk will fight Wanderlei or Forrest then for a title.. so on and so forth.

But the great news about this Rampage/Jardine, Chuck vs. Rua fight… that means Lyoto Machida if victorious will get a title shot!

I must say I am one of the people that thought Shogun was going to come to the UFC and run through the 205 division like like Usain Boltn at the 2008 olympics. Man I feel stupid. So far his 2 performances have been crap. Surgery and time off aside he looks horrible. There have been many fighters who have come off of 1 and 2 year layoffs and looked good. Look at Forrest vs Rampage, there was nearly a year between the fight being set and the actual fight happening (the both of them had 10 months off). Granted they were not contending with injuries. Still none the less he fought a man in his 40’s who was gassed within minutes of the bel ringing. Yes Coleman is big, heavy, and strong, but either way he looked like crap. There is no way in hell that we are going to see an amazing turn around in Shogun. It takes time to develop great cardio. You think Shogun is going to come back the Shogn of old in 3 months, no way! I expect to see him checking the arena lighting from his back in less then 5 minutes. Even the few clinches he had against Coleman that sorta looked good will not be enough. Chuck has not looked great his last few fights but as long as he makes Shogun fight more then 3 minutes he will be in the clear to land a haymaker and put Shogun to sleep. Shogun seriously needs to reconsider his training camps.

Hmm…3 months to the day. Quite simply not enough time for Shogun to fix his cardio. Unless he KO’s Chuck very quickly, he’s going to get hurt very badly in this one. Chuck is not what he was, but he has one of the nastiest right hands in the business. Shogun would’ve been destroyed by just about ANY other LHW besides the ridiculously washed up Coleman yesterday. He should look at himself as INCREDIBLY lucky to even have that win, and hook back up with Wandy in Vegas and re-learn what conditioning is. As a huge fan of Shogun/Chute Boxe in the past, I hope he can right his ship. As a fan of the sport, I believe its a total lack of respect to come into any fight in that condition. I’ll give him one more chance. If he pulls that shit again, I hope Dana fires him and he’s never sen again.

I think for now on I only buy the PPVs that include title fights. As for the rest, I will still watch.

I don’t understand why some fighters won’t go out of their way to get better conditioning. I know if I was a fighter and my conditioning wasn’t up to par I would seek out a Sherk type camp for all my cardio training. I was so pissed off yesterday watching the Coleman/Rua fight where both men were gassed after 5 min that I just wanted the fight to be over with.

I know I’m being harsh here, and I usually don’t agree with Dana’s bull tactics, but I hope he made it totally crystal clear to Shogun that he’s got to come in in better shape than that. The guy’s 27 years old, for gods sake. He hasn’t even come close to peaking yet. Maybe he needs to sit down with BJ and realize that he has the potential to be a legend. Maybe he took Coleman lightly, maybe it was the time difference over to Europe, maybe something else. No matter what, he’d better fix it, or its going to be a total what if situation.

If Rua shows up like he did yesterday, Chuck will KO him at the end of the 1st.

Shogun had ring rust, enough said

That was ring rot.

Congrats to Dan Simmler for winning his first fight since the ultimate fighter! He defeated his opponent by triangle in the second round of the fight.

Chuck is going to put shogun on ice lol it took an elegal knee to the face of coleman for shogun to beat him, coleman was ahead on the score cards, shoguns a pussy and can only beat guys when hes alowed to kick them in the face on the ground like in pride hahaha GO ICEMAN

We really need to re-evaluate some of Shogun’s past achievements when discussing him. The PRIDE Grand Prix from 2005 was fantastic; but the fact is that most of those fighters haven’t panned out since then. Arona is one of them. Lil Nog is another. They just can’t be considered top fighters in any context, so that diminishes Shogun’s wins over them.

Does anyone really think that Arona (who got smashed by UFC reject Sokoudjou) would even be a contender in today’s UFC? No. Does anyone think that Lil Nog (also smashed by the rookie Sokoudjou) would be at the top of the UFC’s 205 lb. division? No. Arona and Lil Nog are both decent fighters; but they were overhyped because of their wins over Henderson and Arona’s win over PRIDE juggernaut Wanderlei Silva. That’s it. Therefore, Shogun’s wins over those two fighters means next to nothing. We are left with Shogun’s win over Rampage being his only impressive win over a top, current fighter. We can’t count Overeem because Overeem is not consistently fighting top guys these days.

Shogun has to rebuild himself in the UFC. The Shogun who just fought Coleman is not gonna make it, and he doubtless knows that. If Shogun can’t completely revamp his conditioning and learn how to strike with some power, he’s flat-out done in the UFC. It’s time to take the rose-colored glasses off.

Dana White says Liddell is still the most famous name in UFC (the advertising of the UFC on whatever channel promotes pay per view) and Dana doesn’t want Chuck to lose to his next fight so Chuck can be built up again and a fight against Shogun would be a breeze of a KO for Chuck the way Shogun has been perfoming.

I’m a Coleman fan as I knew him from the Columbus gym, but it’s time for him to retire unless his performance had some other legitimate cause such as cutting the 25-30 pounds.

SHOGUN’S GONNA GET KNOCK THE FUCK OUT. POOR GUY. HE NEEDS TO GET BACK ON THE JUICE

Both my fav fighters so its hard to say

Funny how many before this say chuck should retire
Now vice versa
Or chuck to win

Rua has skills to win but I don’t think he has ko power in hands like page and rashad
Anyone that doesn’t have it I’m pretty sure chuck can defeat
Therefore shogun sure has kicks maybe with those

I don’t think chuck can ko rua but I see similar fight to wanderleis

For one tho I don’t see rua taking chuck down or clinching him
Regardless based on recent fights
I got chuck by decision

im sick of ppl saying shogun will be in shape – dats wat he and his fans said for the coleman fight and thern he gave that performance..for the 1st time ever i will be strongly pulling for chuck to knock shoguns lazy unconditioned ass OUT!

btw wtf is dis Rampage Jardine fight about its a waste of time let Quinton hav Rashad !!!

except for the first the palhares and davis fights..i dont think the main 3 fights were that good,, all the fighters were gassed out after the firts round

Shogun better not gas then walk round with his hands down

I like Shogun and hope he gets back to Pride form, but Chuck is going to knock his block off. Chuck by TKO late in the second round.

Its kind of funny, how things change, in a few years who knows gsp, bj penn, a silva and fedor might not be top 5 in there divisions anymore. Hughes was number 1 forever same with liddel shogun was number 1 for some time tito was a long time champ, how are these guys doing today? Remember how serra wasn’t even on the radar until he fought gsp and for almost 1 year was considered by mma weekly as the number 1 welter weight, now he’s number 7. And I sure after he fights matt hughes won’t even be on there anymore. 2009 will be a very interesting year as to who keep there title and how things will turn out.

I’ve been a shogun fan since his debut in pride…I have a few of his fights on dvd and especially his grandprix tournament performance from Final Conflict 2005…The only way I see Shogun winning is if his conditioning is superb…He is an aggressive fighter that never stops walking in front of you whether he is gassed or not…That can lead to his ultimate downfall against Chuck since the Iceman is an excellent counter puncher…Shogun wins the fight IMO..His last performance will make him stronger…Shogun by split decision (leg kicks will score big on the judges score card)

This is a perfect match for the Iceman to turn it back around if he is ever going to. I hope he does. Even for the ppl that do not like chuck, you know you enjoy watching him. At that any second he can KO anyone. Hopefully Rua will come in better than the coleman match, that was so unimpressive. Chuck by KO in round 1

shogun is a embarassment.coleman almost fell over getting into the ring.liddells going to kick his ass.

Go home shogun fans, the iceman is going to KO him

Liddell comeback starts with Shogun

This is a good comeback fight for Chuck, easy opponent that he will most likely KO in the first round.

shogun has been knocked out before R/P…i’d want to see chuck knock him out but you know its hard to tell at this point,man i wanna hear wat their trainers have to say!!

people need to shut the f up about pride guys useing steriods anderson silva is the best p4p rampage is a former champ and wany went 3 rounds with chuck and a lot of people think wandy one plus nogara and bj penn was in pride to

yep colemon was the onley one that looked like he used the juce plus shogun should be at 185

the people who think chuck one that fight r crazy win he knocked chuck down twice he would have stomped on his head and shogun would have done the same thing to colemon chuck will get ko

and henderson

Chuck via first round KO

So if Thiago Silva wins is he going for a title shot? I hope so…he’s young and very marketable to the average UFC fan.

While I agree that Shogun didn’t look his best, I don’t understand the apparent double standard that seems to apply to Shoguns detriment. Forrest walks around much bigger and stronger than Rua, as does Coleman. When Forrest cut weigh, the furor was over how much stronger a cut Griffin would be for Rua to contend with. Yet when Coleman cuts weight, it’s claimed that he must be weakened and it’s to Rua’s favor. When over 40 legend Randy fights, if anyone gets a glove on him they are annointed a hero. While when over 40 legend Coleman fights, if he isn’t devestated, the opponent must be a putz. While Coleman didn’t fight recently, does anyone recall that his most recent fight against none other than Fedor, he dominated and gnp’s Fedor until Fedor turned an arm bar, fortunately for him, and that’s Fedor, a heavyweight. I think the fight commentary by Joe had alot to do with this wave and would have appreciated a more balanced approach, such as Frank invariably presents. Just stop frame the begining ref instructions in this fight and look at these men shoulder to shoulder. Coleman’s shoulder towers over Shogun, is much thicker and muscular and his body much stronger, a different level physique to contend with. While Rua tired too easily, undoubtedly, he should get some credit for beating Mark Coleman, and looked one hell of a lot more in control and taking less pounding than Fedor did (again, short of the final arm bar). Shogun’s capable, and seems to have the ability to take fighters out of their game, so we’ll see.

If Chuck Lidell calls him self a kickboxer then why doesnt he fight the “Real” Iceman Fred the Iceman in a kickboxing match. We all Know you were a champion in UFC and a good one but if you are claiming to be a kickboxer step up to the plate and fight the man in kickboxing Fred The Iceman. Lets make the match happen and settle once in for all who is the real Iceman in the kickboxing world, even when Fred the icemans leg came off in a motorcycle accident and had 4 reconstructive surgeries and they wanted to amputate but he refused and 14 months later he fought again and won by ko in the second round with leg kicks at 44 years old so bring it Chuck!!!!!