bUGLYbLOG

Chuck Liddell is not done…I am a fan of Chuck Liddell. I love to watch him fight. I like the knockouts. Up until the Rampage Jackson fight, it was almost a given that if he was fighting, he was going to deliver a knockout (regardless of the opponent). Then Rampage knocked him out. Sure, he wasn’t face down sans his mouth piece, a la Keith Jardine in the Houston Alexander bout, but he was stunned and most definitely on the verge of being Gonzaga’d (referencing the CroCop fight here). This past weekend he made his first appearance back in the octagon since the knockout and ended up losing for the second straight time (a first in the storied career of the Iceman). Keith Jardine out pointed him for most of the fight and earned a split decision victory, one that probably should have been unanimous. With all due respect to the Dean of Mean, Liddell should have knocked this guy out in the first round. Jardine is not Randy Couture, he’s not Vitor Belfort, he’s not even Gumby (aka Jeremy Horn). So, what gives?

Well, it’s one of two things in my opinion. Either he is going through a Roy Jones type career culmination or he just doesn’t care that much anymore. When I say a Roy Jones career culmination, I am talking about the third Tarver fight (October 2005). Tarver had brutally knocked Roy out a year earlier and it appeared that he just wanted to survive the third fight. I saw this fight live on tv and it was difficult to watch. Roy ran most of the fight and never appeared to want to sit and exchange with Tarver. This was the same fighter who had beaten James Toney, John Ruiz, and the Executioner (Bernard Hopkins), and here he was seemingly running from Tarver. This was the end of the great Roy Jones Junior. With respect to Chuck, I don’t think he was afraid to get back in the octagon. He’s been knocked out before and come back strong (referencing the first fights with Rampage and Couture - both ending in TKO’s), so I’m just not buying that he was nervous or worried about getting K.O.’d.

Therefore, my guess is he just doesn’t care anymore (or doesn’t have the desire to do what is necessary to win at the UFC championship level). Chuck’s looked a little pudgy recently, he’s shown up to an interview a little loopy, and lets face it, he is getting paid win, lose, or draw (For the record his base salary, as reported over at mmajunkie.com, for the Jardine fight was $500,000 - while the winner, Jardine, earned a paltry $14,000). Bottomline, he just didn’t seem prepared, either physically or mentally (poor gameplan), for the fight. Will I watch his next big fight? Yes, but for his own legacy he needs to bring it. My guess is that a significant percentage of the mma fan base (talking about the new folks here) have only seen Chuck fight twice - both resulting a loses. Obviously Chucks better than this, but times running out for him to show the newbies what all the fuss is about.