Former UFC Light Heavyweight Champions Tito Ortiz and Chuck Liddell recently competed in the main event of Golden Boy MMA: Liddell vs. Ortiz III, with Ortiz getting the first round knockout victory.
Oscar De La Hoya was the promoter for the event, a person whom UFC President Dana White refers to as “Oscar De La Cokehead.”
“Listen, I love Chuck Liddell and I don’t ever want to badmouth Chuck Liddell,” White said on UFC Unfiltered. “People do think I’m badmouthing Chuck Liddell , but the reality is, first of all, lets says this first, I heard last week that the cokehead, ‘Oscar De La Weirdo’ is talking s***, that I don’t have any place to tell guys when to retire. First of all, it’s called friendship you f***ing cokehead. I’ve been friends with Chuck Liddell for 20-years and the reality is that Chuck Liddell retired when he should’ve retired, 8 or 9 years ago whenever it was. Chuck Liddell is 50-years-old and has no business fighting anymore and that fact that the State of California even let that fight happen is disgusting, it’s disgusting. Chuck Liddell is a huge superstar and has a great legacy in this sport. So of course, as friend, anyone that claims to be a friend of Chuck Liddell and was anywhere near this fight is full of s***. They aren’t a friend of Chuck Liddell. To let him go in and fight this fight. It’s terrible.”
There has been a lot of flack directed towards the event, with CSAC Executive Director Andy Foster and Ortiz coming out in defense of it.
De La Hoya took shots at how the UFC pays their fighters in the lead up to the event, but now White has a message for the retired boxer on how he pays fighters.
“The problem is Chuck Liddell was a fighter, Chuck Liddell loves to fight and that’s his passion in life,” White said. “But there comes a day and age. Fighting is a young mans’ game. He can’t do it and Oscar De La f***ing Hoya says ‘oh come over to Golden Boy where we respect the fighters and it makes me sick what the fighters were paid and all this s***.’ Out of 14 fights on the card, five fights were amateur bouts which means they didn’t pay them jack s***. 12 of the professional fighters on the card made less than $3k and $3k,” he continued. “What are you talking about you cokehead junkie? Some of the guys made $1k and $1k and he says that he respects the fighters so much? He couldn’t even remember their names at the press conference.”
Ortiz did announce his retirement after the event, while Liddell’s future in the sport remains unclear at this point in time.
