File this one under “curious”: Chuck Liddell thinks that Mauricio “Shogun” Rua is not one of the greatest fighters of all-time.
“Shogun is not among the great fighters, and never will be,” said ‘The Iceman’. “He needs much more to reach the level of Anderson Silva, for example.”
The reason it’s interesting, of course, is that Rua knocked Liddell cleanly unconscious when the two fought back in 2009.
Perhaps Liddell doesn’t remember that fight? He was in the middle of losing five of six fights, after all, and a little memory impairment can come with the territory when you’re violently knocked out four times in the later stages of your career.
Look—there is no question that Shogun is one of the greatest light heavyweights in the history of the sport.
When Liddell was tearing through the UFC with wild abandon, Shogun was doing the same thing in Japan. They were yin and yang, trapped on opposite sides of the ocean, with fans across the world wishing they could someday see two of the greatest cinch up their gloves and go to war.
Is Shogun on Anderson Silva’s level? No. That’s absurd. But Rua is absolutely one of the greats in the history of the sport, and it’s borderline asinine to think anything otherwise.
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