Liddell-Rua is UFC 97's real draw
UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva's pursuit of the all-time UFC win mark has garnered most of the attention, but another fighter on the card is looking to add to a standard.
Chuck Liddell (21-6), who debuted way back at UFC 17 in 1998 with a preliminary match victory over Noe Hernandez, already has the UFC record for most wins in a career with 17. He'll look to extend that mark when he meets Mauricio "Shogun" Rua at the Bell Centre in Montreal on Saturday night.
And while Liddell-Rua is second-billed on the card, UFC 97's success on pay-per-view is far more dependent on Liddell's fight than on the nominal main event of Silva vs. Thales Leites. Silva has never been a major pay-per-view draw. Leites has an impressive 14-1 record, with 11 of his 14 wins being by finishes, but he means nothing as a drawing card as Silva's opponent.
Liddell, on the other hand, is UFC's all-time biggest pay-per-view draw, and the level of fan interest in his attempt at a comeback will determine the numbers UFC 97 pulls on a show with three Brazil natives in the top two matches.
If UFC president recent Dana White's comments are to be believed, Liddell is not just fighting Rua to extend his record, but also for his career. White reiterated previous statements on Wednesday when appearing on the television show "Off the Record" on TSN, Canada's version of ESPN, promoting the fight. He said if Liddell loses, that will be the end of his career.
Rua's own future is in question as a loss would surely end his headliner status. Since he has a headliner-level contract, suffering two losses and an unimpressive win in three UFC outings wouldn't bode well for him.
Liddell is 39 and has lost three of his last four fights. Rua, a former model in Brazil who got into fighting after the success of his older brother, Murilo, is 12 years younger and was considered by many as the top fighter in the light heavyweight division from 2005-2007.
But he looked so unimpressive in a win over 44-year-old Mark Coleman on Jan. 17 in Dublin, Ireland, that Liddell goes into the fight as a 7-4 favorite. Coming off two knee operations that kept him sidelined for 15 months and out of shape in his last fight, Rua needs to impress people to revitalize his career.
"I think there's a great amount of pressure, but this doesn't (work) against me," said Rua (17-3) through manager and interpreter Edouardo Alonso. "I think it (is) in my favor and pushes me forward. I focus myself the most so this won't really put any extra pressure in a bad way, and instead this will motivate me. I know my potential, and I know it's only up to me to (reverse) this."
Rua left the Chute Boxe gym in his hometown of Curatiba, Brazil, to train in Sao Paolo.
"For sure that helped," said Rua through Alonso. "It was a new experience for me and it has helped me mainly because of the focus. Sometimes when we are at home we get a little acquainted, and sometimes we tend to get distracted with problems and not push ourselves to the limit. So I think moving to another city to train got me 100 percent focused on the fight, and I can tell that I feel more prepared and conditioned for this fight."
Rua is likely better with submissions on the ground, but stylistically, he would have had a difficult time taking down the old Liddell, and an even more difficult time keeping Liddell from standing right back up if he did. Liddell hasn't had a fight in a few years that turned into a wrestling or grappling battle, so there is no evidence if he's slipped.
On paper, it's an intriguing striking matchup. The old Liddell had the knockout power and granite chin. The old Rua had the complete package of punches, kicks and knees, along with speed and great conditioning. Liddell is taller and had more reach and more power, but Rua had more weapons.
The 2009 versions are more questionable. Liddell's last finish was against Tito Ortiz on Dec. 30, 2006. He's been knocked out twice since, and was knocked down in both of his other matches. He can't rely on his chin to save him, and boxing defense was a major focus of his training camp.
Rua is still young enough to get it back. He did have a bad knee going into the Forrest Griffin fight, which is a legitimate reason his stamina wasn't up to par. And he was coming off two knee surgeries for his January fight. But it's only been three months since that fight and if he hasn't significantly turned his stamina around, he'll be lucky to get out of the second round here.
The key seems to be Liddell's age vs. Rua's conditioning, as opposed to differences in skill level.
Liddell never shows emotion, hence the "Iceman" nickname. But he'll be coming to the cage with a T-shirt designed by the late Charles "Mask" Lewis. Liddell knew Lewis from his UFC debut 10 years ago, and Lewis had just finished designing the shirt before his recent fatal auto accident. Liddell noted the death hit him hard, but he only missed one day of training to mourn.
The final mark in jeopardy is the UFC attendance record. The UFC debut at the Bell Centre drew a sellout 21,390 fans on April 19, 2008. This second event didn't sell out quite as fast, but it has been sold out for months and the record is just a matter of how many people they squeeze in as the crowd should be roughly identical to the first show.
