This Saturday night, former UFC light heavyweight champions Chuck Liddell and Tito Ortiz will battle for a third time. While some members of the MMA community have been critical of this fight between the two UFC Hall of Famers, who are 48 and 43 years old respectively, their fellow UFC legend Randy Couture is happy for them.
Randy Couture gave his take on this Chuck Liddell vs. Tito Ortiz rematch on a recent episode of Submission Radio.
“Well, I was actually very happy that they decided to do this through Golden Boy [promotions],” Randy Couture said. “I’ve been hearing the rumors. Obviously, I see Tito a few times a year at some of the charity events we do and I see Chuck quite often. Actually, he does some of his strength and conditioning at Unbreakable performance in LA at mine and (Jay) Glazer’s gym there. So, I’d heard the rumours that they were working on putting this fight together and I’d actually trained with Chuck a few times a year ago when he was kind of testing himself out to see how he felt and see if he could get back into fight shape. And so I wasn’t surprised when they finally got it all signed and done. And again, I was very happy they decided to go with Golden Boy. Golden Boy is obviously a boxing organization and they’re using the boxing model – 75 percent of the income from that fight and all the fighters that fought on that card are gonna receive the money that comes in – and that’s a little bit different model than any of the other UFC or the MMA promotions are using. So, I hope they both made a boatload of money and that it goes very well and that Golden Boy decides to stay in the MMA business and create another viable outlet for Mixed Martial Artists to make a living.”
Randy Couture also broke down this Tito Ortiz vs Chuck Liddell rematch, sharing his belief that Ortiz should win if he decides to use his wrestling.
“I think if he’s (Tito Ortiz) smart and game planning he needs to come out and find a way to get a hold of Chuck and put Chuck on the ground and make Chuck fight off of his back. That’s not something we’ve ever seen Chuck do really and that’s certainly lends itself to Tito’s style. That’s where he won over 90 percent of his fights, planting himself on top of somebody, using those elbows and the ground and pound to really take a lot of gas out of people and work people over. I think hopefully he doesn’t think he’s got something to prove. Obviously he lost to Chuck twice, so the reason this fight’s happening is cause he wants to prove something, that he can beat Chuck, at least at this stage of their careers. So it’s gonna be interesting how he approaches Chuck. Is he gonna make Chuck wrestle him? Is he gonna stand around and trade with Chuck? Which I think is probably a horrible idea, but you know, it’s part of the parcel. You gotta be able to trade a little bit, even if you want to get into range to take him down.”
What do you think of Couture’s take on this Chuck Liddell vs. Tito Ortiz rematch?
This article first appeared on BJPENN.COM on 11/22/2018.