Last night the UFC’s Chuck “The Iceman” Liddell was knocked out in the first round. Which wouldn’t be so striking — you fight long enough, you lose on occasion — except it’s the third straight fight this has happened and this time it was to a guy in his mid-30s with a broken arm. Now there’s talk that Liddell should retire, as he’s 40 and has lost five of his last six bouts (including another first round knockout)…but I say keep reaching for that rainbow.

Liddell has achieved the level of fame that entitles him to Entourage cameos and Dancing with the Stars appearances: from strictly a karma standpoint, he was probably due a beating. That said, three straight knockouts? One knockout happens, after two people get concerned, and three is when your friends force you to attend a job fair to explore other vocations. But what if he sticks with it? What greater tribute could there be a fighter’s will to overcome the pain and compete purely for the love of the fight, showing that though his body is failing him, his desire remains unbroken and unblemished?

The drawback to this is likely brain damage.

Happily, the UFC may have found a way to keep Chuck going without completely destroying his speech patterns: fighting him against people who have even less reason to be in the ring than he does. Notably there would be a postponed third bout against Tito Ortiz. Fight trilogies are often thrilling — see Ali-Frazier — but typically those trilogies don’t involve a guy who’s already been knocked out twice by his opponent, as Tito was by Chuck, because in such situations the third fight is meaningless (“Ultimate Fighting Championship: We don’t know the meaning of ‘rubber match'”). Plus now Tito had a severe neck injury (watch the surgery here), hasn’t won a bout since 2006, and his last opponent was, technically, his common-law wife and retired porn star Jenna Jameson.

Clearly this will be a man Chuck will struggle to get knocked out by. And yet I think, against all the odds, he can still manage to pull it off. And when the Iceman is being rushed to the hospital after suffering another youtube-worthy demolition (even better than the ones he used to inflict), we can be reminded that anything is possible in the fight game, particularly if you have the heart of a lion and handlers with zero interest in your long-term health.

Tweet  Print This Post

Tags: sports // 1 Comment »