Chuck Liddell retired from the sport almost seven years ago, but he still misses the game.
The former UFC Light Heavyweight was one of the biggest stars of the sport in the early 2000s, governing the US’s best 205-pounder at the pinnacle of the UFC vs. Pride era. “Iceman” fought the MMA “missing over seeing him constantly in sports,” joked, “If my dad’s time isn’t keeping up with me, I’m still doing it.”
“I love fighting,” Liddell said when discussing the 20th anniversary of his first UFC title victory, the first round knockout of Randy Couture at UFC 52 in April 2005, “I always miss it (I fight). It was a great time.”
Liddell was 15-3 in the sport participating in that event at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, including a third round stoppage to couture when they first met two years ago. Returning from a 1-1 trip to Pride in 2003, Liddell stopped Tito Ortiz and Vernon White in a back-to-back fight to score a shot in the incontroversial UFC Gold.
“Everyone is always asking me,” Liddell said as he questioned whether it was his favorite victory. “If you chose to put a gun on my head and then so many great things happened. But if I had to choose it, that’s it. I revenged the loss and finally got the title I was chasing and won the show. It was a pretty high moment.”
Liddell retired from the UFC after losing to Rich Franklin in 2010, but remained in the company as Vice President of Business Development. He was let go after UFC’s sale to WME-IMG. “The Iceman” returned to the competition a few years later, losing to Tito Ortiz in 2018 at an MMA event produced by Golden Boy Promotions.
“I’ve never been involved (at MMA) and I’m still going to do something,” Riddell said. “I’m going to some of the UFC. Some of the big things I want to go to. I’m still following the fight. I have to watch on the phone at dinner. I’m still watching a lot of fights.”
Since 2005, many things have changed in the situation of combat sports. While the UFC is currently the No. 1 MMA promotion and doesn’t even challenge its advantage, athletes now have different means of pursuing money and fame, such as naked knuckle events and boxing.
“I’m all for those who have a place to fight and make money,” Riddell said. “If they like it, that’s great. I’ve always said, because if I fight a boxer that day, I’m used to hitting with a naked knuckle. Or at the time, five, five, six (events).”
“Everything is changing,” he continued. “More people are fighting. And there are 45 UFC events a year? And since each of those cards has 10-12 fights, you’re talking about 60-100 fights, not 450 fights. And that’s if you’re at UFC level.
“When I started, it usually had a foundation for strike or jiu-jitsu or wrestling and you had to learn the other two. One of the advantages I had in the beginning was that I was a striker and a wrestler, I had two and had to learn one. You have to become a perfect fighter, you have to be decent on everything, then something is really good.”
The sport has evolved and mixed martial artists are more balanced than before, but Liddell generally believes fighters are different from past times.
“When I started fighting, the home runs were 150 grounds a year,” Liddell said. “It’s probably if you fought three fights to get it. So there was nothing big. You got someone who likes to fight. That’s a job I can keep fighting. You had a more pure fighter.
“Today you still have both, you trust me, but you are athletes who can fight. They are good athletes, they can fight. They know how to fight. And that’s a different way of thinking. I mean, I have people who really do well.
He thought he was more like a pure fighter than the overall athlete from today’s UFC roster, and chose Brazil’s Alex Pereira. “Poatan,” a pupil under Danbury’s longtime friend Glover Teixeira, won the title in two weight classes in the UFC after doing the same with Kickboxing.
“Yeah, there’s quite a few about that,” Riddell said. “Pereira is one of my favorites, but obviously he’s from Glover (Teisheirah). But I like his attitude about fighting. He’s a beast.