The Iceman is on Thin Ice

He made a living knocking out people. Now, he's the one getting knocked out. So now, what's next for Chuck "The Iceman" Liddell?

The writing so to speak was already on the wall for Chuck Liddell: It’s time to call it a career. It had been there for quite sometime already, only, The Iceman kept ignoring it.

Every time Liddell ignored that proverbial writing on the wall, he kept paying the price—big time. The first letters were scribbled on Chuck’s wall in early 2007 when he lost by brutal knockout to Quinton “Rampage” Jackson. In late 2007, Liddell looked awfully pedestrian―slow, tentative, full of doubt―in a shocking loss to fringe light heavyweight contender Keith Jardine. And though The Iceman finished 2007 with a decision win over Wanderlei Silva, it was already obvious, painfully, tragically, that the UFC’s biggest star had lost his moxie.

By the end of 2007, it was clear that Chuck Liddell was no longer The Iceman that the world knew and loved. He was a step slow. His reflexes were seconds too late. His punches no longer came in dizzying bunches. His vaunted right hand no longer snapped like a cobra on the attack. And his chin was no longer cast in granite.

Then, upstart contenders Rashad Evans and Mauricio “Shogun” Rua hammered home the painful truth that indeed, Chuck Liddell was officially a thing of the past as each scored impressive victories over the long-time light heavyweight champion, the former winning by KO and the latter by TKO. By then the writing on the wall was complete, and yet Liddell—fuelled perhaps by unyielding confidence, false bravado, or plain hubris— ignored it still.

Bad move, Chuck.

On Sunday, the man known for knocking out people was knocked out yet again, this time by a former middleweight no less—long-time champ and UFC great Rich “Ace” Franklin. This was Liddell's fourth KO loss in his last five fights (his fifth loss overall in his last six fights), and like in his previous KO losses, all it took was one punch to knock the living senses out of the 40-year-old Liddell.

Yes, The Iceman looked surprisingly spry and active and aggressive in this fight, but the fact of the matter is, he can’t take a hit the way he used to in the old days. In his absolute prime, Chuck could take a knee and still fight on, woozy and all. Now, all it takes to shut the lights out of Liddell’s brain is an on-the-button punch, as Jackson and Evans and Franklin all found out.

Admittedly, it will be tough for the UFC’s greatest star to say good-bye to fighting. There is just something about the fight game that makes it hard for great fighters—Ken Shamrock, Dan Severn, and Randy Couture come to mind, so do Ali and Foreman and Erik Morales in boxing—to walk away. This something, quite likely, is something very difficult to grasp, something almost impossible to comprehend.

Whatever that something is, it should not stop Chuck Liddell from heeding the writing on the wall. It’s time for him to walk away from the sport he helped build, one spectacular knockout after another. He has done so much for mixed martial arts already, and he has given the fans years of breathtaking excitement and vicious knockouts. The Chuck Liddell Highlight Reel is one for the ages, and there may never again be a fighter quite like him. Now, though, it’s time for Chuck Liddell to do what’s best for Chuck Liddell: stop fighting.

Once The Iceman finally does walk away from fighting, he will leave the sport as one of its greatest stars, a legend through and through. Now that’s a fact that fans can and will never ever ignore.