There’s no doubting the fact that some MMA fans, like in any sport, are prone to bandwagon jumping. One day a certain fighter is ‘unbeatable,’ after he loses his next fight, the dude ‘was always overrated’ (there are thousands of ankles worldwide that will never fully recover from jumping off and on the Vitor Belfort wagon repeatedly…). At any rate, it wasn’t that long ago that Chuck Liddell was ‘the man’, but after losing 4 of 5 fights, “The Iceman” appeared to be so done fighting that he went dancing…People weren’t jumping off wagons (it was mostly abandoned after his loss to Jardine); they were making acute observations.
Well, despite the widespread calls for his retirement, Chuck is shrugging off the haters and will have another go at Tito Ortiz. In an interview with MMA Weekly, Chuck’s assistant coach on the upcoming season of TUF, Jake Shields, states that Liddell is so full of motivating hate, he believes “The Iceman” is back.
”I haven’t seen him this motivated since years ago when I first met him,” Shields said when appearing on MMAWeekly Radio recently. “He’s like a whole new Chuck. I think a lot of people are counting him out, being like, ‘oh, Chuck needs to retire,’ but the way Chuck’s looking right now, I wouldn’t want to fight him.”
Well, due to the fact Chuck is fighting a guy he beat twice before; even Liddell’s staunchest critics are probably preparing their ‘that win doesn’t mean anything’ speeches. But hell, if Chuck looks good, and can make another run as Shield’s predicts, we’ll be damn entertained watching.