Heading into Liddell vs. Ortiz 3, Oscar De La Hoya, promoter of the dubious main event that unfolded Saturday night, said in an interview with MMA Junkie that one should never tell a fighter when to hang up the gloves. “You never tell a fighter to retire. That’s his business. It’s the fighter’s business,” he told the outlet. De La Hoya, a former fighter himself, was speaking from the heart. Unfortunately, it’s the head that’s required when such decisions are being weighed. And realistically, it’s the job of several parties — coaches, commissioners, loved ones — to suggest a fighter call it a career.

It’s a shame none of them told Chuck Liddell prior to Saturday night.

The main event of Liddell vs. Ortiz 3 was exactly what many thought it would be. Exactly what many feared. An aged and obviously slowed Liddell shambled around the cage, awkwardly looking for a way to land on Tito Ortiz. Ortiz, who had not been away from the sport for long, was without question the superior athlete. He beat Liddell at his own game. But in reality, father time beat Chuck Liddell before he ever stepped into the Golden Boy MMA cage.

“I wouldn’t have made this comeback if I didn’t feel like I was in great shape. I made a mistake. I got caught,” Liddell said after the fight. All of that, on the surface, is true. Liddell was in great shape, for a 48 year old man. Yet being in great shape, and being in fight shape, are two different things. Liddell never looked to be in fight shape, as his disastrous open workout proved.

Any talk that Liddell was pulling a fast one at the open workouts, intentionally trying to look bad to throw his opponent off heading into Saturday, went out the window in a heartbeat when Liddell vs. Ortiz 3 got underway at The Forum in L.A. And no one should have been surprised. We’ve been here before, after all. Shamrock vs. Slice was just as farcical. Not that you can blame the athletes. Wanting to keep competing is natural, and in any other line of work, wouldn’t be an issue. In fighting, however, it’s dangerous, and no one really needed to see Liddell knocked out again.

Fighters rarely want to admit time has passed them by. Promoters, however, have a responsibility to watch out for the safety of their athletes (sorry, independent contractors). For once, Dana White got one right, ushering ‘The Ice Man’ into retirement all those years ago. He’ll get an I told you so moment out of this, but it’s doubtful even White wants to brag about this one.

Ortiz, in the four and half minutes or so that it took to put away Liddell with a combination that the Chuck of old would have seen coming a mile away, proved little. Other than that a fighter who has recently competed and stayed in the gym will have a clear advantage over an aging fighter eight years removed from the game. As if you really needed that lesson. Ortiz finally got his revenge on Saturday, but in a victory akin to elder abuse, that’s not really much to celebrate. Worse, he encouraged Liddell to continue fighting. Apparently, the hatchet wasn’t completely buried Saturday night, because Ortiz wants to see his old rival take further punishment.

It wasn’t all doom and gloom on Saturday, mind you. As bizarre as the whole ramp-up to Liddell vs. Ortiz 3 was, as underwhelming as the main event was, the production was top notch. The commentary and analysis solid, outside of Rashad Evans tripping over his tongue once or twice. The house was packed come the main event. Deron Winn, the undefeated prospected matched up against the returning Tom Lawlor in the co-main event, emerged as a potential star. There were some solid submission finishes.

Golden Boy is welcome to stick around MMA. Through all the weirdness, including the Golden Boy himself being unable to pronounce Chuck Liddell’s name, there was some entertainment value Saturday. Of course, whether the promotion tries again will no doubt rest on how Liddell vs. Ortiz 3 performed on Pay-Per-View. But should De La Hoya take a second stab at promoting an MMA event, let’s hope he chooses a main event more relevant, and less decrepit.

The post Now that Liddell vs. Ortiz 3 Is Over, What If Anything Have We Learned? appeared first on Cageside Press.

Deron Winn is currently a hot prospect in MMA, and one of the rare cases where Bellator hasn’t snapped up a top wrestling prospect long-term. Winn, who fights out of Dethrone Base Camp alongside Ed Ruth and Chris Honeycutt, and is friends and sparring partners with UFC double champ Daniel Cormier, fought once for Scott Coker’s promotion. However, that was a one-fight deal, and Winn is keeping his options open.

That brings him to the co-main event at Liddell vs. Ortiz 3 on Saturday, under the Golden Boy MMA banner. It’s Oscar De La Hoya’s first attempt at promoting an MMA show, and while the card has had its share of criticism, the boxer-turned-promoter made a smart move in selecting Winn to feature. He’ll be taking on former UFC fighter Tom Lawlor, in his first fight back following a USADA suspension.

The pair had their first real interaction this week, at the final press conference before the fight. Speaking to Cageside Press, Winn said that Lawlor’s “been in this game a long time, so he knows what to say. I don’t know if he’s trying to get under my skin, or promote the fight or whatever.” However, the pro wrestler certainly did what he could to get some shots in — but it hasn’t fazed Winn any.

“I’m not scared, I’m prepared,” he said. “I know exactly what he has to offer. Everybody can talk a game, and try to act like they’re big time or whatever, or think he’s going to be the man after this. But at the end of the day, we’re going to find out. We’re going to step in that cage, it’s going to lock, and we’ll find out.”

While Lawlor has dabbled in pro wrestling, Winn is a decorated amateur wrestler who finished fourth at this year’s U.S. Open. Just weeks later, he fought in Bellator, then took part in wrestling’s World Team Trials. All in a matter of weeks.

Why Winn continues to pursue wrestling while competing as a pro fighter is simple. “There’s a lot of downtime as I build in my professional career in fighting. So I like to be active and competitive,” he explained. “For a guy like me, I like to stay in shape and train. That’s what’s best for me in the long run.”

“The more downtime I have, the worse it is for me,” he continued, and noted that new opportunities continued to arise in the wrestling world. “There were some new weights and now there’s these professional matches and stuff like that. So I saw these opportunities, and I pounced on them when I could.”

That said, Winn’s focus will likely switch mainly to MMA in the coming months, especially if all goes well this weekend. “I’m not going to lie, I probably won’t be doing it for much longer, because now my career’s about to jump off after Saturday night, and I’ll probably give wrestling the back seat,” he confessed. “But wrestling is what molded me into who I am today, so I love it, and I always will.”

As to what comes after Saturday, Winn’s interested in hearing all offers, be it from Golden Boy, Bellator, or the UFC. A breakthrough performance could certainly land him a big contract. Which makes his fight against Tom Lawlor key.

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Antonio McKee wasn’t even interested in talking about his incredible crop of rookies after Tuesday’s media day for Liddell vs. Oritz 3. The head coach of Team Bodyshop instead immediately focused on accusations leveled by Tito Ortiz that McKee had leaked him info about Chuck Liddell’s training camp. Liddell has been working with Team Bodyshop in preparation for this weekend’s fight between the two MMA legends at The Forum in L.A.

McKee wanted to make one thing clear immediately: he’s no snitch, and Ortiz needed to retract his statements. “I’m still active. I’m in the streets. I’m trying to make a change in the community. I don’t deal with a lot of law abiding citizens, and a lot of them do illegal things,” McKee explained about why the issue is so important to him. “I’m trying to be a positive influence in our community. I still live on the outskirts of that area. So by him saying that about me, I took that really personal, and I don’t like that. Because the people that I’ve worked with, the people that I’m working with, they need to know one thing about me, that they have my loyalty.”

“If someone is referring to me as a snitch or a spy, that can’t run where I’m coming from,” he said. Asked how he’s been able to handle his relationship with both Ortiz and Liddell, McKee pointed out that “I trained Rampage, and Rampage was in the same gym as Tito. I’ve worked out with Tito, Tito’s came to my gym and worked out. It’s all good, that’s the fight game.” He went right back to the snitch issue however, adding “but when you refer to me as a snitch or a spy, I take that real personal.”

“So I went over to Tito and I asked Tito, ‘hey bro you need to clear that up, you can’t be having me out there like that,'” McKee continued. “I’m almost 50 years old bro. I came from a bad place. I’m in a good place now, the last ten years of my life has been amazing! Mentoring, coaching, developing inner city talent. And for that to be said, there’s another way to sell the show without doing that.”

To his credit, Ortiz had already retracted his statement when he spoke to Cageside Press just a few minutes earlier. Still, speaking to the media simply isn’t enough. For McKee, it’s a matter of clearing it up “with the community, with the public. You need to go on your social media, and you need to clear that up. Because you can’t say that about me. I have an image I have to uphold, just like anybody else. You can talk about my momma, you can talk about anything you want, but to say I’m a snitch? I’m from the streets.”

Despite a lack of education and top schools at his disposal, and the very real possibility that he go down a rough path, McKee clawed his way up to where he is today. But that streets background never seems to fully vanish. Snitching, with that in mind, is one of the worst things McKee could be accused of, in his mind, up there with child molester.

With that matter dealt with, however, Antonio McKee had high praise for Chuck Liddell, and their first camp together at Team Bodyshop. “It was another great athlete under the coattail, but out of all the athletes I’ve ever worked with, Chuck was probably the hardest worker out of everybody.”

Will that hard work pay off? We’ll find out this Saturday, November 24. Liddell vs. Ortiz 3 takes place at The Forum in Los Angeles, live on PPV.

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When it comes to Deron Winn, Tom Lawlor has a good idea of what to expect. He’s facing the amateur wrestler this weekend at Liddell vs. Ortiz 3, under the Golden Boy banner. It’s Lawlor’s first fight since 2016. “No surprises. He’s one of the top amateur wrestlers in the country,” Lawlor said. With that in mind, he’s expecting the take down, and barring that, “he’s going to throw some big punches before he tries to take me down.”

“It’s a cut and dry game plan as far as I look at it,” he said of Winn. “I don’t think he’s going to come in with anything I’m not expecting. I’ve seen it all, he hasn’t. He’s relatively young in his career.”

While his opponent is young and hungry, Lawlor told Cageside Press that “I’m hungrier. I guaran-damn-tee you that.”

Lawlor took a few potshots at Winn ahead of the fight, a bit of page out of his pro wrestling career. “Everybody knows the deal, professional wrestling is…” he said then paused. “It’s fixed.” Breaking news, right? “It’s pre-determined. That doesn’t mean it’s not an athletic contest in and of itself.” Breaking Kayfabe. Yikes.

As Lawlor pointed out, he’s been out of the MMA realm for a while. “I’ve been training the entire time, I’ve been getting ready for a fight, it just so happens it’s going to be here for Golden Boy.” But while he’s been gone, “luckily I’ve had a lot of support from the professional wrestling community,” he explained. He’s been doing shows, staying active, and his self-promotion ahead of his MMA return is a nod to his second career.

“I want people to know that I’ve been in that world, so those people who supported me for the past two years have something to look forward to,” he said. Plus, having done his research, he recognizes that the two professions have long been intertwined, from Brazil to Japan.

In fact, he found wrestling through MMA. Now, he’ll return to his original field, on November 24 in Los Angeles, and look to get his career in fighting back on track.

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We’re just a few days out from what Tito Oritz says is his retirement fight. Disregarding the fact that he’s retired a couple of times before, his fight against Chuck Liddell, the third in their career series, does feel like a book end. Coming under the Golden Boy MMA banner, with a paycheck riding on how well the PPV show does, it’s something of a gamble. But, Ortiz told Cageside Press on Tuesday, he’s a gambling man. Looking down, well, he’d have to be. Even his shoes were something of a gamble (just check out the video above).

Speaking about the end of his career, Ortiz said that when he looks behind him, “there’s not one rock unturned. I’ve really worked hard to be where I am today, I’m very thankful to be where I am today.” Now, he can look forward to one last walk. One last fight. “Four more days, and it’s time to go to war. I can’t wait.”

In advance of the fight, he decked himself out for a funeral, presumably Liddell’s, or at least any notion of ‘The Ice Man’ making a comeback. An then there’s those shoes. Gold and black, gold spikes, as Ortiz pointed out. Combined with his gold and black watch and black suit, it was “like I’m going to a funeral,” he explained, “because there is going to be a burial Saturday night.”

At Tuesday’s press conference for the event, Golden Boy’s first foray into mixed martial arts, Ortiz claimed to have some inside knowledge of Liddell’s training. Some of that centered on Antonio McKee, who heads Team Bodyshop, where Liddell has held his current fight camp. However, Ortiz walked some of that talk back later on.

“Antonio never told me nothing. It wasn’t nothing towards Antonio,” Ortiz admitted. “I do know things though. You live in Huntington Beach, you’re not going to be able to get by things without me knowing.”

As to what, exactly, “training partners. People he’s training with, who he’s training with, how he’s training, the things he’s doing.”

Ortiz pointed out that Liddell “says he trains as much as he takes time off. Okay. He says he lets his body recover. Well, at that age you’ve got to let your body recover a little bit, I understand that.” However, while Ortiz lets his body recover as well, “I’m in the gym six hours a day,” he said. “For him to only be in the gym two hours a day, five days a week — I don’t know. I hope he’s in as good as shape as he says he’s in. I’m in great shape.”

Ortiz was clear, however, that McKee hadn’t leaked him any inside scoops. “I’ll take it back, what I said about Antonio. Antonio never said anything to me at all. Antonio’s a good dude, I’ve known him for a long time,” Ortiz reiterated. “But I know all the other training partners he’s with too.”

As far as the payday waiting at the end of all this, Ortiz admitted that it’s a gamble. Howver, “I’m a gambling man. I’ve always been a gambling man,” he said. “And I’m willing to put my gamble out there knowing that I have some really really great fans. I know Chuck Liddell has some really really great fans. They’ve always wanted to see this number three fight happen.”

We’ll know soon enough if those fans tune in for the trilogy fight between Tito Ortiz and Chuck Liddell.

The post Tito Ortiz Rolls Dice On Third Fight With Liddell, And His Shoes appeared first on Cageside Press.

‘The Ice Man’ cometh back (excuse the bad pun) this Saturday night, and Chuck Liddell is not planning for his return to MMA against longtime rival Tito Oriz to be a one-and-done. Instead, if all goes well, you can expect to see more of Liddell, who told Cageside Press on Tuesday that he had been offered other fighters, for even more money up front.

But for a number of reasons, Liddell opted to fight Ortiz for a third time. Tito, meanwhile, has been doing his best to get under Liddell’s skin. Heckling him at the open workouts last week, saying at Tuesday’s press conference that he in effect had spies in Liddell’s cap. To ‘The Ice Man,’ however, it’s old hat.

“He did the same thing with Stephan Bonnar,” Liddell pointed out, referring to the pair’s infamous fight back in Bellator MMA a few years ago. “It’s the exact same line. He can’t come up with a new one? He can’t create something else, something new, something a little more developed? It’s the exact same thing he did with Bonnar.”

Liddell’s been clear that the potential for the biggest payday of his career rests in the acceptance of this fight by the PPV buying public. “It’s a possibility,” he said, though not a guarantee. “I had offers with a lot higher guarantees to fight other people,” Liddell said Tuesday. “This was something, I needed a tune up fight, and that’s one of the reasons I’m here.”

Key term in that, tune up. If it ends with Liddell’s hand raised, he intends to keep going, even just a few years shy of fifty. “If everything goes the way I expect it to on Saturday night then yes, I will be back again.”

Liddell vs. Ortiz 3 takes place Saturday, November 24 at The Forum in Los Angeles, CA. The event airs live on PPV.

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Liddell vs. Ortiz 3 is set to go down later this month at The Forum in L.A., and whatever you may think of the booking, it will be one of the biggest grudge matches this year. Conor-Khabib. TJ-Cody. Asked how the fans react when something personal is on the line, Tito Ortiz said Tuesday that “when there’s something personal on the line, the fans attract to it. You got the fans who love Tito Oritz, you got the fans who hate Tito Ortiz. You got the fans who love Chuck Liddell, you got the fans who hate Chuck Liddell.”

“I get paid to train, I fight for free. When it’s fight time, it’s fun,” Ortiz later added. He admits training is the hard part, leaving his body aching. But it’s all worth it.

For at least one more fight. “Right now, all I’m thinking about is this fight,” and not any others, he told media outlets including Cageside Press at the open workout session. “That’s all I want, this fight. I got an opportunity. Liddell called me out, and I was like ‘hey, third blessings can be true.’ To get my hand raised is the next one. I know I’ve put in the work. But right now, all I’m focused on is Chuck Liddell.”

Liddell, earlier, had claimed not to recall times Ortiz has mentioned in the past, involving the two of them being a little more friendly. “I guess he’s been punched in the head way too many times. He’s forgot a lot of things,” Ortiz quipped.

“I remember him sitting on my couch picking his dirty-*ss toes, and my wife telling me ‘why in the hell is he picking his feet on our couch?'” While that story isn’t about the steal any headlines, Ortiz also recalled the pair getting into a street fight overseas. “I remember him defending me and standing street fighting with a guy in England,” Ortiz revealed. “The guy punched me, he punched the guy back.” True friends fight for each other, don’t they? That seems to be what Ortiz was getting at. “But Liddell, he’s confused, and I understand it. I know what the truth is,” Tito continued. “And you know what, he ain’t my friend. He ain’t my homie. He ain’t someone I’m going to back up.”

In fact the ‘Huntington Beach Bad Boy’ later added that “I’m doing him a favor my taking this fight against him.”

As to why he’s coming back, Ortiz stated that “I love to compete. I love a challenge. I lost to this guy twice. I’m willing to take a chance. I want to take a chance. I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t take a chance. I wouldn’t be a man if I didn’t take a chance.”

“Everybody else, they lose twice and they say ‘aww I’m done, I don’t wan to do that again, I’m afraid to do that again,'” Ortiz suggested. Not him, however. “No, I’m not afraid to do that again. I want to try. I want to try to get my hand raised. I’m going to go out there and do whatever I possibly can to get my hand raised. And I think that’s the most important thing, that I’m a hard working Mexican-American that worked hard to where I am today. If someone tries to prove me wrong, I’m going to try to prove them wrong as many times as I possibly can. If it takes ten times, it’ll be ten times.”

“There’s no quit in me. There’s never been quit in me through my whole 21 years of competition,” he added.

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On Tuesday at King’s MMA in West Hollywood, Chuck Liddell and Tito Oritz showed off they moves in an open workout session ahead of Liddell vs. Oritz 3 later this month. It’s been nearly two years since we last saw 43-year old Ortiz compete. Eight since ‘The Ice Man’ was in action, and he’s now 48.

Yet there are still plenty of fans who will tune in on November 24, or attend live at The Forum in L.A., to see if the two former UFC champions can turn back the clock. At the very least, the rivalry between the two is alive and well: Ortiz demonstrated that when he turned up at Liddell’s workout to heckle him.

Liddell later insisted he didn’t care.

Tito Ortiz and Chuck Liddell first met at UFC 47, when ‘The Ice Man’ knocked out Ortiz early in the second round. ‘The Huntington Beach Bad Boy’ would go on to win his next five bouts, including two against another rival, Ken Shamrock, before getting another stab at Liddell at UFC 66. This time, Chuck held the belt, and the pair put on a Fight of the Night. However, the end result was the same for Ortiz, albeit by TKO this time, in the third round.

Liddell would go on to lose the belt in his very next fight, and lose five of his last six fights total before being ushered into retirement by Dana White. Ortiz, meanwhile, would have a falling out with the UFC, retire, then jump to Bellator, finishing his career 3-1 in that promotion.

Liddell vs. Ortiz 3 takes place on November 24 at The Forum in L.A., and airs live on PPV.

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A lot has been said about the undercard of Liddell vs. Ortiz 3 since it was unveiled several weeks ago. For fans used to relatively stacked UFC cards, there was just a sprinkling of familiar names. That’s not to say the card lacks talent. Leandro Gomes, a.k.a. ‘The Pequeno Hulk,’ faces Westin Wilson at the show on November 24. He’s excited to be sharing the card with legends, and told Cageside Press Tuesday about what he feels Golden Boy Promotions, who are putting on the show, can do for MMA.

“For me, I feel blessed to fight on the same card,” Gomes (3-1) said of the opportunity to fight alongside legends. “I train every day, I train hard at King’s MMA with master Rafael Cordeiro. I wait for a long time. This opportunity — now it’s my time.”

Gomes feels that Golden Boy moving from boxing to MMA is “great for the sport. It’s great for everybody, because Golden Boy is so big.” To jump to MMA now, he feels, is perfect. And he hopes this first card results in “2, 3, 4,” and so on. If that works out, “boxing, we know the fighters, boxing pros, have respect, a lot of money. MMA needs this too. And Golden Boy can give respect, money to the fighters.”

When it comes to the fighters atop the card, “I’m a big fan of both guys,” Gomes told us. “I played a video game when I was young with Chuck Liddell and Tito Ortiz. I know it’s going to be a great fight, for everybody, it’s going to be a great show.”

He’s wasn’t about to pick a winner, but told us “I hope to finish my fight quick, then back to watch the fight.”

As for that video game, “I played more with Tito Ortiz,” Gomes admitted.

Liddell vs. Ortiz 3 takes place November 24 at The Forum in Inglewood, CA. The card, under Golden Boy MMA, airs live on PPV.

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When Chuck Liddell takes on Tito Oritz for the third time on November 24, it won’t quite be a sense of deja vu, but it will be close. Liddell, of course, has faced off with the man before. Twice. And won both encounters. Yet the ‘Ice Man’ who squares off against Tito that night will be nearly a decade removed from the sport. He’ll be 48 years old. Long retired.

So why’s he back? “Fighting, I love fighting,” Liddell told Cageside Press on Tuesday. “I love the sport, and I love fighting. So that’s why I’m back.” As to why he’s come back to the Ortiz feud yet again, well, “Tito, I just don’t like him. I don’t like the kind of person he is. He’s classless. You saw him at my workout yelling and stuff. There’s no need for that.”

Ortiz decided to do a little heckling during Liddell’s turn at the open workouts. ‘The Ice Man’ continued, admitting that “I like poking fun at him because he’ll say something stupid, and talk trash to me. But it is one of those things, I just don’t like the guy, I don’t like the kind of person he is, I don’t like the way he treats people, I don’t like the way he is. So I’m going to have a lot of fun punching him in the face.”

In regards to Ortiz’s antics at the workouts, “it’s funny. It doesn’t bother me, him watching me work out,” Liddell said. “It’s not going to change anything I do. He can come watch all my workouts if he wants, he’s more than welcome to come watch me train. He’s just going to get more scared.”

This is Liddell’s first fight outside the UFC since his IFC days, if you discount his excursions into Pride. On how Golden Boy compares in terms of promotion, Liddell said that “it’s different, because we’re more involved in it. More involved in getting the different media outlets out, more involved in just promoting the fight.”

“The UFC has a well-oiled media machine for the fight,” he told us. “This has been a learning experience, but a lot of fun to get out there and work it, promoting the fight.”

In the build-up to the fight, Liddell had to go through the distraction of his home being threatened by the California wildfires currently raging. Luckily, “I was just evacuated [as a precaution], our home hasn’t been touched to my knowledge.”

“My kids were displaced for a little bit, but they came down to train with me, which made my day even better,” he added. “They got to come stay with me for a few days, they got out of school and stuff, so it was nice having them around for training camp.”

If Liddell vs. Ortiz 3 is a bit of a hard sell with fans because of Chuck’s time away from the cage, he made his case Tuesday. “You’re going to see a war. You’re going to see guys going after it,” the former UFC light heavyweight champ stated. “And you’re going to see me back. You’re going to see what kind of shape I really am in.”

Liddell vs. Ortiz 3 takes place November 24 at The Forum in Inglewood, CA. The card, under Golden Boy MMA, airs live on PPV.

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