Dana White still wants Chuck Liddell to Retire Following Tito Ortiz Bout

Published on: 13th December, 2009

Dana White still wants Chuck Liddell to Retire Following Tito Ortiz Bout  | read this item

As we all know last weekend during The Ultimate Fighter “Heavyweights” finale UFC President Dana White announced that the next coaches for season 11 would be another pair of light heavyweight champions Chuck Liddell and Tito Ortiz as they will engage in a third matchup following the upcoming season. However, many people have been asking why Chuck Liddell?

Following a recent UFC 107 press conference UFC President Dana White says that he had to be convinced in order for Liddell to get another fight in and appears that he has done so, but White is still hopeful that ‘The Iceman’ does in fact call it a career after the Ortiz fight.

“I wanted [Liddell] to retire,” White recently told a small group of reporters at a UFC 107 press conference. “It just went back and forth for so long. What he said to me was, ‘How about I take some time off. Let me take some time off.’ He did this ‘Dancing with the Stars’ thing, and he had fun with it. I was happy with how aggressively he went after it and really trained…[Liddell and I] made some other deals, personal deals, between me and him for this season of ‘The Ultimate Fighter.’ We’ll let [Liddell and Ortiz] go at it again.”

However, following a loss to Forrest Griffin in his Octagon return at UFC 106 last month Tito Ortiz was targeting to coach against Griffin in order to set up a third fight as the pair were knotted up at one fight a piece, but White did not want that due to the fact that Griffin just did TUF not too long ago against Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson  for season 7.

“Forrest beat Tito,” White said. “Forrest will move on and take another fight at 205 (pounds). Forrest just coached for me with ‘Rampage’ (on ‘The Ultimate Fighter 7′) not too long ago. We’ll let Chuck and Tito do it.”

Still, Liddell has faced Ortiz twice and won on both occasions convincingly and although White still does not want Chuck to fight ever again his friend is still healthy and capable enough to do so.

“He’s been checked out,” White said. “He’s had the CAT Scans and all the other stuff. He’s healthy. He can fight. My thing is me and Chuck have been together since the beginning of this thing. For a promoter and a fighter to have the relationship that we’ve had for as long as we’ve had it – and he became such a huge superstar and everything else, and we’ve had this great relationship – the reality is I love this guy. I care about him personally.”

But, when it is all said and done White still wants his longtime best friend to retire whether he wins, loses or draws.

“I’m not thrilled with it,” White said. “It’s not what I wanted. But like I said, I’m not his father. I’m not his dad. We’ll see what happens after the Tito fight. I would like to see him hang it up after the Tito fight. That’s my plan: He does one fight and then he retires – win, lose or draw.”

Will Chuck Liddell listen to Dana White the third time around? We will have to wait and see what happens in 2010.

Source: MMAJunkie.com

 Nelson Rodriguez AKA: Nelo2.0 is the Co - Owner of URDirt.com who is also an Editor and Author on the site. Read more from this author

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