Written by Jeff Cain/MMAWeekly.com

Fotos by Joe Cordova/Brawlin.net

 

Former Ultimate Fighting Championship light heavyweight titleholder Chuck Liddell heads into his UFC 97 co-main event bout with Mauricio “Shogun” Rua with talks of his retirement swirling in the media, but the 39-year-old fighter has no intentions of hanging up the gloves just yet.img_0497_6284afg6cy4cropwm_gallery

“It’s something for people to ask,” said Liddell. “They were saying that before the Wanderlei (Silva) fight, and then after the Wanderlei fight they were saying, ‘oh he’s back.’ I was winning the Rashad Evans fight until I got caught, and now everyone thinks I should retire again.”

Liddell has lost three of his last four fights, but it wasn’t until his brutal knockout loss to current light heavyweight champion Rashad Evans at UFC 88 in September of 2008 that the questions of retirement started being asked by nearly every interviewer the San Luis Obispo, Calif., fighter talked to.

“It’s not like I walked out there and took a beating,” he commented about the loss to Evans. “I got caught. I made a mistake and he capitalized on it. Good for him, but I’m not going to let it happen again. I want another shot at it.”

Liddell doesn’t take offense to the questions of retirement. He thinks it’s a valid question considering his age in a combat sport, but asserts he doesn’t feel like an athlete who’ll turn 40 later this year.

“I will be 40 this year. That kind of stuff has to come up,” he conceded. “My body still reacts well. I still feel fast. I still hit very hard. I can still react and move well, so I’m not worried about it yet. The time is not an issue yet.”

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