Long before there was Jon Jones and Daniel Cormier or Conor McGregor and Khabib Nurmagomedov, the biggest rivalry in the UFC involved Chuck Liddell and Tito Ortiz.
The history between the two former UFC light heavyweight champions dates back to the 90s when they first met and started training together — and both were managed by future UFC president Dana White. But as Ortiz rose to fame as the face of the promotion while also holding onto the title, Liddell was a fast-rising star with visions of gold belts in his eyes as he climbed the ranks.
For a time it seemed like the fight between them might never happen and it was largely built around Ortiz claiming that he was friends with Liddell and never wanted to face him in the octagon.
“Me and Chuck Liddell met in 1998,” Ortiz said on UFC Rivals. “Started training with each other and we just became friends.
“I guarantee you Chuck will sit in this chair and tell each and every one of you that we were never friends.”
That was always the argument between them because Liddell disputed that he was ever that close to Ortiz but instead he just chalked their relationship up to occasional training partners and nothing more.
“We weren’t friends,” Liddell said in the episode.
White, who alongside Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta, had become the new owners of the UFC recognized the magnitude of that potential fight between Liddell and Ortiz but he wasn’t sure it would ever happen. To hear White tell it, Ortiz wanted no part of the fight because he knew what would happen if he ever faced Liddell in the octagon.
“Every time they were in the gym together, Chuck Liddell just absolutely dominated,” White said. “But that doesn’t determine what’s going to happen in a fight.
“But in this case, Tito was absolutely, 100% terrified of Chuck Liddell.”
It seemingly took forever but the fight was finally booked with Liddell facing Ortiz in the UFC 47 main event back in 2004. The title wasn’t on the line because Ortiz actually dropped the belt to Randy Couture but the winner of the fight was expected to immediately become the No. 1 contender in the division.
The long-awaited showdown ultimately lasted less than two rounds after Liddell clipped Ortiz with a punch that caught him directly in the eye and “The Huntington Beach Bad Boy” was immediately wiping at his face with his vision clearly affected.
A moment later, Liddell just started unloading punches in succession until he trapped Ortiz against the cage and blasted away with a barrage of shots. Ortiz finally wilted from the pressure as he dropped the canvas and the fight was stopped.
“To end of that fight I hit him with 23 punches in seven seconds,” Liddell said.
Ortiz was visibly angered by the outcome but now more than 20 years later, he’s willing to give Liddell his flowers on a job well done.
“He was the victor,” Ortiz said. “Congratulations to him. He got his point across.”
Liddell and Ortiz met again three years later but the result was much the same with “The Iceman” scoring a third-round knockout in the fight. Their final encounter came in 2018 with Ortiz finally exacting some measure of revenge with a knockout win in the first and only Golden Boy MMA event, although it’s safe to say the once ferocious Liddell was far removed from his prime when that fight happened.
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