Chuck Liddell - Tito Ortiz update

Tyler Durden

From Figure Four Weekly/ Wrestling Observer -

Chuck Liddell in an interview with Sam Caplan of Sports Byline basically said Tito was a pussy. He read Tito's latest comments and was so mad he called up the newspaper and demanded the opportunity to give his thoughts.

"Why do you need to have a bout agreement for a sparring match you were supposed to have with a promoter? It's not a fight. Why is there a bout agreement? That's him coming up with another reason for why he doesn't have to fight. He's just making stuff up."

He said Ortiz had changed his story a number of times and clearly someone was trying to help him with damage control.

"I saw the first interviews he did after the thing came out. It was just ridiculous. He couldn't have made himself sound more like a pussy. When he first came out, he was talking about how he was worried about getting hurt, he was worried about putting his career at risk, and stuff like that, from getting hurt. Having to get a bout agreement? Is he serious?"

Chuck Liddell famously can handle no bullshit. He said people always asked if he'd beat up Tito again.

"I'll beat him up anytime you want. But it's never going to be a fight. I mean, he'd have to put on a string of wins to make it interesting enough for people to want to see it again. But it would be the same result. There's nothing he can do, not with his style of fighting."

Tito's latest claim, by the way:

"When me and Dana talked about this fight happening, I told him, maybe we should put it on DVD or pay-per-view, and we should split it 50-50. And he said, 'Yes, of course.' And then when it came time for the bout agreement, he denied that. And the fight itself was my idea, so when it became a show on Spike, I should get producer rights. It was my idea; they wouldn't have the fight without my idea. But they denied me producer rights, too. Dana said I asked for all kinds of money. I never asked for a penny. What I asked for was a 50/50 cut of any revenue that came from the fight, and that was agreed upon before this fight ever began. But when it came down to putting it on paper, he completely denied it."

He also said, in regards to all proceeds going to charity: "I wasn't 100 percent sure on that because when we were negotiating, it wasn't ever agreed upon. When it was mentioned six months ago, I said I had no problem doing that. That would be great. But there was nothing in any bout agreement saying any proceeds would go anywhere. To charity, to nothing."

So now he HAS heard about the idea of the money going to charity, whereas when this first went down he claimed he'd never even HEARD of such talk.

"That is the first time that has ever been brought to my attention that this fight was in any way shape or form going to be viewed by the public, or any proceeds made and given to a charity house," he wrote on his Myspace after initially bailing. He also said: "People say Tito's being greedy, but I don't think it is. I put my life on the line stepping in to the octagon, and I think what it comes down to is getting what I deserve. De La Hoya got something like $25 million for his last fight. Mayweather got $20 million. As a main-eventer here, we're making a quarter-million per fight, and that's just ridiculous. That's being taken advantage of and undercut. I've always fought not only for myself, but for the fighters of the future. If it wasn't for me, a lot of fighters wouldn't necessarily be getting what they're getting now."

What utter bullshit (newsletter opinion, not mine!). It's been a long, long time since all Tito made was $250,000 for a fight. Yes, granted, some of the undercard guys are getting raped at $2,000 to show and $2,000 to win, but those are the guys who should be bitching, not the guy who made $2 million on December 30th for one fight and is claiming he made a fraction of that.