Tito started it off with a beautifully disingenuous bit of trash talking posing under the guise of "friendly concern" about Liddell's alleged addiction and recovery. Dana White denied that there was anything to Tito's claims of Chuck going to rehab. But the fuse was lit and the feud is back on.
Chuck Liddell told Ariel Helwani that he "knew that if I fought (Tito) again that he would say something to piss me off, but I didn't expect this." Watch the interview at the bottom of the post.
Liddell also talked to Michael David Smith about the technical changes he's implementing during his lay off from fighting:
"For me the most important thing I need to do is just getting back to basics," Liddell said. "There's some basic problems with my stand-up that I wasn't addressing, and that cost me. I need to make sure I'm not as open as I've been, leaving myself exposed the way I did against Shogun and Rashad (Evans) and Rampage (Jackson)."
Liddell said that from 2004 to 2006, he was fighting opponents who had deficiencies in the stand-up game themselves, and as a result he was able to win seven straight fights (two each against Ortiz and Randy Couture, and Vernon White, Jeremy Horn and Renato "Babalu" Sobral) even though he was making mistakes at times.
That seven-fight winning streak was surrounded by two losses to Jackson, one at Pride Final Conflict 2003 and one at UFC 71 in 2007. Both of those losses demonstrated that a hard-punching opponent could exploit Liddell's tendency to leave his chin exposed, and Liddell says now that he wasn't quick enough to correct that flaw in his game.
"I got away with things over the years and then I got caught, and now I need to go into fights knowing I can't get away with the same things I used to," Liddell said.
Poor Tito, Chuck's going to hurt him again. That is IF Liddell has it left in him. But it's a good thing he's doing the talking to drive interest in this fight. Unlike the first two times Ortiz lost to Liddell, there will be no belt on the line, and honestly no talk of title contention for the winner either.
But from my point of view, featuring "senior league" stars like Chuck and Tito on TUF is a much better alternative than putting a belt on hold.