In February UFC Hall of Famer and executive VP of business development Chuck Liddell, 46, appeared on The Fighter and The Kid podcast and discussed former and likely future division champion Jon Jones, 28.
“I still think if he fought someone like me in my prime he would have a lot of trouble,” said Liddell, as transcribed by David St. Martin for MMA Fighting. “The problem is he doesn’t hit hard enough to hurt me and he’s not going to out-wrestle me. He’s not going to out-wrestle me and I hit too hard for him. I would catch him sooner or later. Styles make fights. … I will hit him. I’ll put my hands on him. I could still give him trouble.”
Jones was not impressed.
“Oh chuck,” he tweeted, later remarking to a fan “Maybe he should’ve fought smarter and saved some chin.”
Liddell appeared recently on AXS TV’s Inside MMA and repeated his earlier comments. “the Iceman” also joked that if Jones keep up the trash talk, he might come out of retirement to fight him at the UFC’s debut at Madison Square Garden.
If he keeps lipping off, maybe, said Liddell to host Mauro Ranallo, as transcribed by MMAjunkie. Liddell has a champion’s attitude, and naturally is going to going to be believe he can win a fight. In fact, saying the opposite would be weird.
It’s funny: Somebody asked me a question, ‘Would you beat him in your prime?’” said Liddell. “It’s one of those things, I’m not going to get mad at him if says he can beat me in my prime. He should say that. If I’m your coach, you better say that.
We were at the UFC (196), and he came up and he was all hurt. And I said, ‘Look, man, if you want to talk trash about me on the Internet, you might want to tag, me so I can respond, instead of just talking trash behind my back.’ Not that I really care, because it’s the Internet. It’s social media. People trash talk all over the place. But, ‘If you want me to know about it, I don’t follow you, so you’re going to have to send it to me.’
Then I was like, ‘Dude, you have my phone number. If you ever see me doing an interview and you’re worried about it, call me and we’ll talk it out.’ Trust me: If I have a problem with you, you won’t have to look for me. I will show up.
