The Nature of the Beast
After watching UFC 88 I was reminded of the reasons I just
love MMA. Here is a sport that you
never really know what is going to happen, and that is why I, as well as others
are drawn to it. I get asked
all the time who is going to win this fight or that fight and I always feel bad
calling the fight before it happens, being the prognosticator sucks, because
you know there are so many elements that come into play in a Mixed Martial Arts
fight it is hard to be able to predict that a fighter is going to be able to
dominate all of the areas associated with today’s MMA. That is what makes Mixed Martial Arts
so compelling and so popular in today’s world. Just look at the last year and there have been some
incredible upsets according to the betting lines, but are they really all such
upsets or have we been duped by our own thought processes?
Why is it that we think one fighter is really going to have
it easy over another fighter? Well
it has to do with a lot of things but marketing and promoters spinning their
tales about the virtues of a particular fighter has a lot to do with it. Chuck Liddell is the most marketed
fighter in the UFC. He is by
Zuffa’s claim the most popular and most famous Mixed Martial Arts fighter in
the world. If their claim is wrong
it cant be wrong by much. Chuck is
a fantastic fighter who has proved himself time and time again in the
Octagon. He has fought the best of
the best sometimes more than once.
Every time Chuck walks into the Octagon people automatically assume that
he is going to win. The man
carries an incredible amount of pressure on his shoulders every time he fights
because most people just expect him to win. If he wins then everyone says I knew he was going to win,
and if he loses everyone starts saying “What’s wrong with Chuck”, he’s too old,
too slow, not hungry anymore, too one dimensional, the list goes on and on.
Here is the real truth. Chuck Liddell is human, and he makes mistakes all the time
just like the rest of us do and in the middle of a fight, if you make a mistake
and your opponent capitalizes on it you are probably going to lose. That is what happened to Chuck at UFC
88 against Rashad Evans. Chucks
answer to all of the reporters that night asking what happened was a simple three-word
statement, “I got caught”. He’s
right, that’s what happened, he made a mistake and got caught making it and was
put to sleep for making it. Yet
everyone is out there saying that a statement like I got caught is not enough,
there has to be more. Was he not
in shape, maybe he was partying to much, no maybe its just all gone to his head
and he really doesn’t care anymore about fighting he has lost the fire. That’s all a bunch of crap! The man trains hard, go up and watch a
workout at the “Pit” a see if they train hard there. Chuck has always partied and he always will, it is part of
who he is. He was winning the UFC
Light Heavyweight Championship when he was out partying. Has it gone to his head, has he lost the fire? Chuck still has the same people around
him now that he had when he was nobody and I think the only thing that does get
Chuck fired up is the fight.
So many people have come out and said things like “What is he
throwing uppercuts like that for”.
Are you kidding me? Chuck
has thrown that same uppercut throughout his career. Go back to UFC 62 and watch his fight against Babalu and see
what punch started the end of that fight, yep that same right hand
uppercut. The big difference is
Babalu was not able to land a beautiful overhand right like Rashad did not
because Chucks left hand was up high where it was suppose to be, rather he was
unable to take advantage of a mistake.
This is what makes fighting so exciting. It is the game of human chess where you either take
advantage of your opponent’s mistakes or you let them slip by which in the end
can mean you are the one being checkmated. Do I think that Chuck should retire like so many
people have said lately? Hell no,
not until he is ready to step out of the Octagon on his own terms and I truly
believe that Chuck has a lot of fights left in him. Is he invincible?
Obviously not, but he never was and neither is anyone else that walks
this earth. Chuck has only fought top-flight
competition his entire career and when all you fight is other great fighters
some nights are just not going to go your way. That’s the nature of the beast in the fight game. Sometimes it’s your night and sometimes its not.
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