Boxing great Oscar De La Hoya is promoting his first MMA event this weekend in the form of Golden Boy MMA: Liddell vs. Ortiz III.
UFC President Dana White has allegedly advised some fighters to retire before, which is something De La Hoya isn’t a fan of.
“Being a fighter myself, I would never, ever, like somebody to tell me that I should retire,” De La Hoya told MMA Junkie. “You never tell a fighter to retire. That’s his business. It’s the fighter’s business. Imagine if I would have told George Foreman to retire. Imagine if I would have told Bernard Hopkins at 51 years old to retire. He would have never won the world title. Imagine somebody tells Floyd (Mayweather), you’re already 40 years old, you should retire. You don’t tell fighters to retire. It’s in their blood. It’s in their heart.”
Liddell initially retired after a loss to former UFC Middleweight Champion Rich Franklin at UFC 115, with the fight against Ortiz marking his first bout in over eight years.
De La Hoya also says that Liddell has been looking great in the lead up to the fight, despite such a long absence from competition.
“Chuck Liddell has earned it,” he said. “He’s looking in phenomenal shape; he’s training like there’s no tomorrow. He wants to build a team and have this trilogy with Tito, which I strongly feel is going to be one of the best trilogies that’s ever taken place in the MMA world. So let it be.”
Golden Boy MMA: Liddell vs. Ortiz III is taking place on Saturday, November 24 from The Forum in Inglewood, California with Chuck Liddell and Tito Ortiz headlining. Fightful is providing live coverage of the event, which streams live on Fite TV.
