Chuck Liddell and the Myth of the Real Fighter

Yea, yea you are. However, that didn’t stop you from writing an excellent piece on what being a “real fighter” is and your last paragraph is stellar.

after this

‘m sure men like Rocky Marciano, Lennox Lewis, Joe Calzaghe, and Bas Rutten would appreciate being told they aren’t real fighters.

and pick it up again starting with this

Maybe I’m being glib.

I can agree with your assessment of the articles statement. It’s touch for athletes to admit or recognize when their physical attributes just aren’t enough to compete at the top level anymore. For every Marciano or Barry Sanders, there’s a hundred Chuck Liddells.

Too often, an athlete must hit bottom before they can see the truth, which becomes a dangerous proposition in combat sports.

Its bad enough that a guy like Chuck won’t see the writing on the wall, hopefully this time will be different, however the implication that people who aren’t like him are somehow less legit is pretty annoying.

Bravado, especially once it becomes institutionalized can be a very, very dangerous thing.

Good piece, but pretty much this:

Maybe I’m unfairly taking Ben to task for what, by all accounts, appears to be a throwaway line in a rather pedestrian piece about the apparent end of Chuck Liddell’s career.

He went out and fought his fight, and his fight was knockin bitches out left and right. Sprawl and brawl until the other guy falls. It does wonders for your fanbase when every fight your in is exciting. It sucks to see him go out like this, Ill miss the Chuck of old. Sadly I dont see anyone being the next Lidell for a while now

I know some, if not all, athletic commissions do CT scans befor fights. Does anyone know how effective CT scans are for determining brain damage? Could athletic commissions deny fighters (I know it’s happened with Thiago Alves) for fear of becoming “punch drunk”?

Fantastic article, Mike.

Jim Brown retired before 30 and is remember as one of the, if not THE, greatest football player ever. We never got to see his fall from grace.

It’s hard to walk away from something you’re so successful at but if you do, that doesn’t make you any less of a real athlete.

other than Leland Rolling you are my favorite poster on this blog, but this piece was garbage. you had a hissy fit over something that doesn’t even exist. I read the folwkes write up and thought that it was actually respectful and well pit together. you took that bolded sentence completely out of context. piss poor

Just a side note, Bas was essentially beaten into retirement. The back injury he received in training was a career ender. It may not having been in the ring, but if it happens in training it counts.

win or lose retire after wand? Seriously? What you are missing is that every fighter is there own person. They have different personality types. While I could see GSP being the ‘smart’ fighter to retire at the end of a career with one last big bang in the octagon. For liddell, yes, you are correct, that could have been the silva fight. However, how many people out there consider liddell the same kind of ‘smart fighter’ as st pierre? Anyone? Bueller?

ben fowlkes was right with the notion that SOME fighters need to be beaten into retirement because their own heart gets in the way of the brain. Yet he make the same mistake you do in suggesting that ALL fighters, real fighters anyways, need this to happen in order to close the book when that just isn’t the case. There are many true fighters that would and could do this. However, liddell is not one of them. How many can argue with ben’s comment in regard to liddell? You think he’d go out on a win? Maybe, mike, you could succeed in talking him into retirement and take it up right where his friends, family, trainers, coaches and bosses failed. Give it a try. See how well that works with someone like liddell.

Because he would have been an accountant for his entire life and still fought the small circuit as long as he could. I don’t think it has anything to do with whether he wanted to go on for too long or not. Everyone who has the balls to step in a ring or cage should be labelled a real fighter. He just happens to love fighting, and will have a tough time letting it go as his body has faded before his desire.

what’s that all about?

The answers to your questions: We all know what a “real” fighter is, yes, yes, yes, we wouldn’t be talking about him at all otherwise, yes, and definitely. :P

Chuck Liddell has yet to confirm retirement despite Dana and Co saying he’s done.

Why?

Why does he HAVE to retire? Sure he’s been clubbed a few times in his past couple fights but why ROB Chuck of his right to retire on his own terms.

After all, this is a man that “helped” build the company status…

Before anyone states the health of him getting back into the cage needs to remember that if he is approved by the athletic commission then he should be able to fight.

At the end of the day he is still a fighter and has the right to decide when and where to hang them up without the pressure of everyone else saying he’s done.

While interest in him is currently waning, he will still sell PPVs and tickets to the events.

He didn’t decide to retire on top, he had a bevy of injuries that forced him to stop fighting. In fact, once he got a bit better he came back to own Ruben Villareal. If not for the injuries, he’d probably still be fighting today, Randy Couture style. He’s in ridiculous shape.

Interesting post otherwise. You’re one of my favorite writers on BE.

By your logic anyone who steps into the cage is equally a “fighter.” I mean technically that’s true but that obviously isn’t what the author was talking about. Are Wanderlei Silva and Kalib Starnes both “real fighters” by virtue of the fact that they compete in MMA? Of course, but they aren’t equally “real” fighters in the sense of the competetive fire and drive that they have. It can be argued that someone who decides to retire on top does not have the same fighting spirit as someone who is so internally driven to compete and win that he will not stop fighting until he is absolutely forced to.

I can’t believe this “interpretation” of Fowlkes’ statement. He’s saying that fighters who compete b/c they love fighting are real fighters. Fighters who fight only b/c they’re good @ it & can make a career usually leave before they “have” to.

Chuck has been getting KO’d left & right. He should walk away for his own safety. Not b/c anyone doesn’t want to see him fight. Unfortunately, he loves to fight.

THAT’S WHAT MAKES ANYONE A REAL FIGHTER. I just wish he would walk away b/c he is not our plaything. He deserves to love a long, happy & healthy life based on all his accomplishments to date.

Fagan—>I may have had a different opinion than yours in the past but it was never worth discussing. In this case, I don’t get your take on it. You are acting like Ben doesn’t respect fighters. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t be blogging for a living.

Fowlkes was saying anything about what a “real” fighter is. I really think you mis-interpreted his entire article Mike.

I think he was saying that fighters like Chuck who are legendary simply aren’t going to retire of their own accord. If Dana doesn’t pressure Chuck to hang up the gloves he’ll keep seeking fights. Dana knew that Chuck was on a downward slope after the loss to Evans but chuck refused to give up and took the fight against Rua with terrible results for the Iceman.

The whole point of his article was to say that fighters with lots of pride in their achievements have to lose in order to understand their just not right for the game anymore. Could he have used better wording besides “getting beaten into retirement”? Sure! But his point comes across crystal clear.

There are some fighters who love to fight so much that certain things like money, family, other interests never take top priority as they get older. These few fighters simply want to keep fighting regardless of their physical condition, the specific reasons and motivations are unimportant because they vary from person to person. What is important to note is that unswerving desire. These type of people, as Ben wrote, need to be beaten into retirement because they will not otherwise stop. Where Ben went awry, imo, is to call them REAL fighters. Its too ambiguous and broad an adjective.

Chuck Liddel is like the Brett Farve of MMA. I hope the ufc isn’t green bay, and try to force him into retirement. When you’re a legend the way liddel is, you deserve to go out on your own terms.

The irony about this discussion is – I seriously doubt that Chuck has had his desire “beaten” out of him. 5 KO’s in a row (or whatever the streak is) sucks, but he is clearly going to want to keep going. In his mind, he’s rededicated himself fought well and “just got caught”. This is something Dana White is going to have to deal with 8 or 9 months from now.

Real Fighters DO need to be beaten into retirement.

I think the fact that Chuck lost the fight makes the statement appear disrespectful and insensitive to some, but “beaten into retirement” isn’t an inaccurate statement. I think where Ben might have needed to expound a little, is the part about losing.

Lennox Lewis retired after nearly getting his ass beat by one of the Klitchscko brothers. He had had enough and was glad that fight was stopped on a cut. Not really wanting a rematch beating and seeing how older boxers have fared when staying too long, he retired. That’s beaten into retirement in my eyes.

If Fedor were to beat Werdum, and then get dragged all over the cage by Alistair Overeem for two-three-four rounds, only to pull out a sudden, dramatic knockout (like he did to Brett Rogers) and then retired… that would be getting beaten into retirement too. Even though he won.

Look at Bernard Hopkins. He told his mom he’d retire at 41. He’s 45, but since no one has whooped him, even in his losses, he feels like he’s still the best. Someone’s going to have to kick his ass to get him to retire.

Real Fighters have to get the point where training, sparring, and getting into the ring/cage/octagon are hollow, meaningless chores that feel too risky before the desire to fight is gone.

That can happen over time during rough training camps, while getting knocked out, or – in the case of someone like Mirko Cro Cop – during a win where you still took a serious beating (that would’ve been worse had the bigger man half your age across the cage not broken his hand putting you on your ass with ease during the first round).

The Calzaghe and Silva examples are a bit off base those guys still need to be beaten down to be done too.

Anderson Silva’s already pushed back the date of his future “retirement”. Calzaghe might have “retired” undefeated, but two old ass men dropped him in the first round of their fights. The only people left for him to fight would have been half the age of Hopkins and Jones, and hit much harder and much more often (Chad Dawson for example). With less money on the table to make, he decided he didn’t want to take that beating. Now that he’s having money issues, and he’s had some time off from taking damage in sparring and the ring, his mind says he might come back…. But I doubt its for more than 2 fights (unless he’s in serious money trouble).

but he could be differentiating between a fighter and an athlete/mixed martial artist/competitor/whatever other word you want to use. Someone who is drawn more to the combat than the sport part of combat sports. Or maybe not.

It’s kinda weird how fighters are expected to go into every fight with the mindset that 1000% they are going to win, no doubts about it, and then turn around after a fight and make an objective call over whether they should hang it up or not.