After over eight years away from actively competing in mixed martial arts (MMA), former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Light Heavyweight champion Chuck Liddell will dust off his gloves to step back into the cage on November 24, 2018.
And he will be doing it against a familiar foe, as he will take on Tito Ortiz for the third time after knocking him out on two previous occasions. While many are scratching their collective heads at Chuck’s decision to end his retirement, “The Iceman” says they shouldn’t be surprised, as he was never really ready to hang up his gloves in the first place.
“I wasn’t really ready to leave when I left,” said Chuck during a recent interview on The Ariel Helwani MMA Show (via ESPN). “I love this sport. I love fighting. I love training. And I feel that I’ve still got some fight in me. Part of it is people told me I couldn’t. If you tell me I can’t do something, I like to prove to you that I can.”
Indeed, UFC president Dana White somewhat had a big part in convincing his longtime friend to walk away from the sport after three straight knockout losses. In doing so, he hooked up his old pal with a cushy job with the promotion.
After enjoying that for a few years, he was dismissed of his duties after WME-IMG took over.
Chuck revealed his fight against Tito — which will be under The Golden Boy Promotion banner — is the only fight he has in line with Oscar de la Hoya for the time being. And that’s good enough to get him back to what he loves to do, even if he doesn’t compete again once he settles his feud once and for all (hopefully) with Tito.
“It’s kind of cool doing this and getting back into it and how many people have come up to me and said I’ve inspired them to get back into doing something they love, or to go and start working hard at something, or to try something they didn’t think they could do,” said Liddell.
“I am going to open a gym after this. I am going to stay in the sport, competing at least as a coach, if nothing else. This whole journey gets me back to my love of the sport, to being in and around the sport. I missed it.”
While it’s no secret his best fighting days are behind him, Chuck is confident he has what it takes to compete at a high level. What he finds odd, though, is that Ortiz is taking pride in saying he can now beat a man who is a shell of his former self.
“He keeps saying I’m a shell of the man I was [and] now he can beat me,” Liddell said. “Why would you even want to promote that? ‘The only reason I can beat you now is because you’re a shell of the man you used to be’?”
Tito, meanwhile, has been more active, as he defeated Chael Sonnen at Bellator 170 in January of 2017.