Chuck Liddell has been retired for over seven years, but hasn’t lost the itch to get back in the octagon if the price is right.
Chuck Liddell seems like many athletes in retirement, trying hard to fill the void inevitably missing when father time forces you to do something else.
“That was the hard thing retiring,” Liddell explained. “You had one goal your whole life and now you don’t have to do anything. I am having fun trying to figure out what drives me. It’s been kind of cool.”
Liddell, now 47-years old, is over seven years removed from his last fight. The itch is still there to make a comeback, even if it might not be the wisest choice for his health.
“I’ll always love fighting,” Liddell explained. “I love training. I even love cutting weight. No one has offered me anything, but if someone wants to run the number up high enough, I’ll come out of retirement.”
Liddell is busy now in the middle of the second season of MVP: Most Valuable Partner on Verizon’s go90 streaming platform. The series pits upstart entrepreneurs against a panel of stars from the all over the sports world including Rob Gronkowski. “I did not know Gronk, but he is fun to work with,” Liddell said. The entrepreneurs goal is to secure an endorsement deal, while MVP showcases the business acumen of Liddell in a pseudo final exam or fight.
Liddell had a strategy that worked for him back in the day in both the octagon and in the classroom.
“The reason I didn’t get nervous before fights was because it doesn’t do me any good,” Liddell reasoned. “I trained as I hard I could, and once it was fight week, there is nothing to worry about. The work has already been done. Kind of like the way I took tests. I crammed and crammed. But, once the test started, I relaxed and just took the test. I always did better than I should have.”
When Liddell was young, he had to take a test everyday at school from other children taking his lunch money. Hard to believe, but Liddell was bullied.
“I was getting picked on in school,” Liddell remembered. “They were taking my lunch money and beating me up because I wouldn’t give it to him. I wasn’t allowed to fight back because my Mom didn’t believe in violence. My Mom eventually took me to grandfather and said son I don’t ever want you to start a fight, but if you get in one you can defend yourself.”
For all the fights Liddell had both in the Octagon and out, he is still standing strong today.
“For what I put my body through, I feel great. I’m still working out, lifting weights, I’m about to play tennis right now,” Liddell said.