Liddell not bitter but thought he had a UFC job for life

UFC president Dana White gave his friend and league Hall of Famer Chuck Liddell a no-show desk job in return for retiring. It followed three KO losses for the once seemingly indestructible ‘Iceman’. However, when WME-IMG bought the UFC, they cut costs. Included in that among many other things were White’s use of a corporate jet, and a number of personnel, including Liddell and fellow Hall of Famer Matt Hughes.

During a recent appearance on Ariel Helwani’s The MMA Hour, Liddell spoke about what might be next, and the seven-year position with the UFC that he thought would be for life.

That’s what was told to me, too, said Liddell, as transcribed by Shaun Al-Shatti for MMA Fighting. But it happens. Life changes. And I think at first I took it a little hard, but now I look at it as a blessing in disguise. It’s got me re-motivated to go out and find what I really want to do.

It is what it is. It’s a business decision, you know? They made a business decision and that’s what it is. I was led to believe that’s not what it was going to be, but it happened and it is what it is.

Liddell now is intent on the next chapter in his career but isn’t certain what it will be.

Just kinda trying to figure what I want to do, he said. It kinda lit a fire under my butt to figure out what I want to go on and do after I’m done, because I was kinda just coasting working for the UFC and just kinda relaxing. I had time with just doing a lot of things with my family and hung out a lot, but now I kinda feel like I’ve got to get something else going on and get a little bit busy, so we’ll see what happens. I’m not sure what I’m going to do yet, but I’m still playing around with movie stuff and doing some of that stuff, talking about opening a gym, so we’ll see what happens.

The UFC sold for $4 billion, the largest sale of a sports property in history. Liddell was not bitter that the owners, including White, brothers Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta, and Abu Dhabi’s Sheik Tahnoon Bin Zayed Al Nahyan each made a fortune, and he lost a job.

Congratulations to the guys, man, said Liddell. They did a great job of building the sport and the company and they were able to sell it for a lot of money. That’s a lot of money. It’s a crazy amount. I wasn’t aware they were even selling. I mean, I heard the rumors and then talked to Dana, he said they weren’t, then they ended up selling a couple of weeks later. So, I wasn’t really privy to that, to what was going on, but that’s a high number, man. I’m happy for them, and they took a risk for a long time. Frank and Lorenzo took a risk for quite awhile trying to make it work, and it worked for them.

There are rumors Liddell wants to fight again, for Bellator MMA, perhaps vs. Chael Sonnen. He did not indicate anything was firm, and noted he still love MMA.

I’m still a fan, Liddell said. I’ll always be a huge of MMA. I like watching small shows, I like the big shows. There’s just a lot of shows. And you’re spending time doing other things, it’s not easy for me to see every fight. But I still follow the sport, I still follow the fights. I’ll always be a fan.