Report: Liddell vs. Jardine to headline UFC 76

UFCJunkie.com is exclusively reporting that the main event for UFC 76 on September 22 in Anaheim, Calif. will be a light heavyweight clash between Keith Jardine and Chuck Liddell.

The UFC needed a fall back after it was unable to make a match between Liddell and Wanderlei Silva and didn’t have many options on the table considering Mauricio “Shogun” Rua, Quinton Jackson, and Dan Henderson are all booked for other bouts.

I have to say I’m a little surprised that Forrest Griffin didn’t get this slot considering he’s coming off a win and Jardine is coming off a loss, but Jardine might be a better candidate considering he holds a head-to-head win over Griffin. Liddell will clearly be the favorite in this bout but Jardine is dangerous and this could turn into an exciting slugfest.

You can read Junkie’s exclusive by clicking here.

Silva responds to reports, says he isn’t ducking Liddell (updated)

Wanderlei Silva has finaly responded to reports on Yahoo! Sports and UFC.com in which the UFC and Dana White claim Silva recently turned down an opportunity to fight Chuck Liddell at UFC 76 on September 22.

Silva has issued his response via a video now posted on his web site. The video is in Portuguese, but thankfully MMAWeekly.com has translated it for their audience.

According to MMAWeekly.com, this is what Silva said:

I never said that I wouldn’t fight Chuck. I’ve wanted this fight for a long time. I received a contract with two options, I could fight in September or November. I have chose to make this fight in November. I was the first to want this fight, but they kept avoiding this fight. Now there’s a lot of people saying that I have ducked Chuck. This is not true.

Apparently the September 22 date just doesn’t work for him right now.

I am in a moment of transition in my life. I’m going to move to the U.S. in a few weeks. I’m going to live in the U.S. and there’s a lot of things happening, and I’m not focused on training the way I want to be. I always fought at the time the promoters wanted. Sometimes I did things I should not have done, but this time I won’t do that anymore.

Silva has a point. He’s a guy who fought injured as he went to the hospital in the days leading up to the fight against Dan Henderson to be treated for strep throat. Silva never used it as an excuse but I know who were with Pride at the time and they’ve always maintained he was in bad shape and probably had no business fighting. A lot of point also fault him for his knockout against Cro Cop but he was fighting outside of his weight class in the GP and he deserves credit for taking fights that most top light heavyweight guys would have shied away from.

And according to Silva, the fight with Liddell is still on:

This fight is on, if he Chuck doesn’t hide behind this mess.

Silva’s story and the UFC’s story are similar that an offer to fight Liddell was indeed on the table. However, they still don’t add up. If Silva was indeed offered an option and chose November, why would the UFC go to such effort to claim the fight is a not going to happen? And why would Silva leave a message on his official web site on Wednesday claiming the match is a done deal for September 22 when he’s now saying he agreed to the bout for November?

Maybe the UFC is angry he chose November over September, leaving them without a main event for 9/22 in Anaheim? But if that’s the case, then why would they have even given him November as an option?

This really doesn’t make sense to me. White is claiming the match is off and that he doesn’t think it will ever happen while Silva is claiming he’s decided on November as to when he’ll fight.

What it comes down to is that there is three sides to every story: in this case, Silva’s, White’s, and the truth. I think the truth lies somewhere in between Silva’s account and White’s account. At the end of the day I’m sure the real issue is money and that if the money aspect is figured out, we might actually yet get to still see this fight. I don’t think Chuck is afraid to fight Wanderlei and I don’t think Wanderlei is afraid to fight Chuck.

Another thing I wanted to communicate is that while I was watching Silva’s video (of which I could not understand a word of, but I like the way he talks) I started having flashbacks of how the Phil Baroni vs. Frank Shamrock main event was promoted. Dana has said he believes Chuck vs. Wandy will be the biggest MMA match in the sport’s history and perhaps a page is being stolen from Baroni and Shamrock and they are promoting the match on the Internet before they go public with it and promote it to the mainstream.

To read MMAWeekly.com’s report, click here.

And to view Wanderlei’s video message, click here.

Updated: Rudimar Fedrigo is quoted at http://portaldovaletudo.uol.com.br/s…rna.php?id=918 as saying that the message which appeared on Silva’s official web site claiming the fight was a done deal was unconfirmed information and blamed the site’s webmaster for posting it prematurely. Well, that answers one question.

UFC continues its offensive on Wanderlei Silva

After the UFC spoke with Yahoo! Sports MMA/boxing writer Kevin Iole on Wednesday, the fight promotion has issued a story on its own web site in regard to the breakdown of a potential bout between Chuck Liddell and Wanderlei Silva.

UFC.com writer Thomas Gerbasi reiterates most of what had been previously reported by Iole but he was able to speak with Liddell:

“I really wasn’t holding my breath,” Liddell told UFC.com of the latest implosion of a match against Silva. “I was hoping it happened, but if the guy wanted to fight me, he’d fight me.”

The article also essentially confirms a UFCJunkie.com report that a deal was in place at one point while echoing the sentiment expressed in Iole’s article that the fight isn’t happening because of Silva’s doing:

There was a glimmer of hope in the last couple of weeks, when terms were reportedly reached for the two future Hall of Famers to meet at UFC 76 in Anaheim, California, but Wednesday afternoon, a Silva representative informed UFC President Dana White that ‘The Axe Murderer’ did not want the fight.

You can read Gerbasi’s article at UFC.com by clicking here.

All I can say is that the UFC is really going after Silva on this one and it would be sure nice if he issued some kind of response.

Breaking News: Silva vs. Liddell fight off

According to a new article on Yahoo!, Kevin Iole is reporting in his latest MMA column that a proposed bout between Chuck Liddell and Wanderlei Silva is off after Silva reportedly informed UFC president Dana White that he did not want to fight Liddell.

The UFC has been looking for a fight to serve as a main event for UFC 76 on September 20 and had been pushing for Liddell vs. Silva. However, Wednesday was the apparent deadline to get the match done and according to Iole, the deadline passed without an accord being reached.

Iole’s report contradicts what had been previously reported on UFCJunkie.com and a loose translation that this reporter had gotten from Wanderlei Silva’s site.

So who is right and who isn’t?

That’s hard to say because the credibility of Iole and Junkie are both impeccable within the industry.

It should be noted though that Iole has a direct quote from White, which speaks volumes:

“This is the worst news I could have possibly gotten,” White said. “It’s horrendous. I have been trying to make this fight for six years. I have done everything in my power I could do over the last six years to make this fight and it’s still not happening. I just don’t see it happening now.”

We’re just going to have to wait and see how this one plays out. It seems odd that reps for Silva would say he doesn’t want the match when he has a story about the deal being done on his own site. I also find it a stretch that he doesn’t want to fight Liddell. If the money is right, why wouldn’t he fight him? But it all goes back to the quotes from White. You can’t really dispute a quote that comes straight from the boss’ mouth.

Was a deal on the table and about to be signed and it suddenly came a part at the last minute on Wednesday afternoon? Well, it wouldn’t be the first time a match between Silva and Liddell fell through at the 11th hour.

To read Iole’s entire article, just click here.

Silva apparently confirms fight with Liddell

If you go to the official web site of Wanderlei Silva you will notice that there is an image of both Silva’s face and Chuck Liddell’s face engaged in an edited staredown. If you click on the graphic it takes you to a page with some text.

I decided to have that text translated on Babel Fish and here’s what I got back:

The date of the fight of Wanderlei Silva is confirmed. It will be day 22 of September, in U.S.A., place and schedule still not defined. The confrontation between Wanderlei Silva and Chuck Lidell already had been divulged has about two months, and now it increases the expectation of the fans in following the final preparation. After many challenges, Lidell will have the chance to face intense Wanderlei, that are in constant preparation, treinos and an infinite will in winning this confrontation.

Also other fights for the UFC are marked: In UFC 74, day 25 of August, they will face Randy Couture and Gabriel Gonzaga and day 09 of September Quinton Jackson face Dan Henderson, for UFC 75.

You can read the original text in Portuguese by clicking here.

Credit goes out to reader MJC_123 who first pointed out the text that appears on Silva’s site.

Report: Liddell and Silva reach verbal agreement

UFCJunkie.com is reporting that a source close to Chute Boxe has stated that a verbal agreement has been reached between Chuck Liddell and Wanderlei Silva to fight at UFC 76 in Anaheim, Calif. in late September.

The report states that the two fighters have agreed on “numbers” for the bout and the fight will likely be signed once Silva returns to the U.S.

To read the full report, just click here.

Liddell’s agent address rehab claim

UFCJunkie.com was able to reach the agent for Chuck Liddell, Jervis Cole, and get him to comment on a claim made by Vernon White in an interview for BloodyKnux.com that Liddell was in rehab in the time leading up to his fight with Quinton Jackson at UFC 71.

Cole got right to the point:

“[It’s] not true. No other comment is needed.”

Silva talks Liddell

MMAWeekly.com has an excellent column on its site right now covering the Brazilian MMA scene.  There’s a lot of great stuff in it, including comments from Wanderlei Silva addressing reports about a match with Chuck Liddell and a possible association with Randy Couture’s gym, Xtreme Couture.

On Couture:

Having taken some time off from fighting, former Pride Middleweight Champion Wanderlei Silva recently traveled to the U.S. The Chute Boxe fighter is currently visiting Randy Couture’s Xtreme Couture gym, conducting seminars and showcasing some of his skills and techniques to students. “There’s a big chance that Chute Boxe will send somebody to teach the Brazilian Chute Boxe way of fighting in Couture’s camp,” stated Silva.

In regard to Liddell, it looks like once a contract is signed we’ll see the bout possibly take place in September:

Wanderlei is currently waiting for a contract offer before he begins training full time again. A family oriented person, the former champion has been spending time with his wife and kids while remaining focused on potential fights in the near future. According to Silva, “My next fight will probably be against Chuck Liddell in September. It might be the fight of the year, let’s wait and see what happens.”

Check out the whole article at:

http://www.mmaweekly.com/absolutenm/templates/dailynews.asp?articleid=4104&zoneid=2

White accuses Liddell of going to rehab

 Former UFC light heavyweight and current IFL fighter Vernon “Tiger” White recently did an interview with BloodyKnux.com. In the interview, White makes the claim that Chuck Liddell was in rehab leading up to his fight at UFC 71 against Quinton “Rampage” Jackson.

Here’s the excerpt where White makes his statement about a trip to rehab for Liddell:

A lot of people don’t understand is that I have a CAT scan that goes through my eye that shows where the finger entered my eye and where the bone was blown out under my eye socket. It cost $38 thousand dollars to fix the eye. I have a silicon implant in my eye that’s screwed down so my eye doesn’t fall down into my nasal cavity. As far as I’m concerned with all these idiots out there who don’t know what happened, they should keep their mouths shut until you know the facts.

Everyone was saying, ‘I didn’t see a thumb go in, I didn’t see this, I didn’t see that.’ Just because it wasn’t a thumb, it doesn’t mean a finger didn’t go into my eye. When you have interviews from other fighters stating that Chuck’s fingers have gone into their eyes. It doesn’t mean that he stuck his fingers in the eye, but with the way he punches, his knuckles go in people’s eyes. I can’t bad mouth Chuck. He just came off a hard loss. Chuck just got out of rehab, but I do have to say it was stupid for him to come out of rehab and fight Quinton the way he fought him. He should have fought a smarter fight. Quinton’s my boy, I love you, and hold that belt forever.

By rehab, does he mean for alcohol or drug addiction, or does he mean some sort of injury? It’s hard to say, but there’s no love loss between the two. White and Liddell had issues before they ever fought in the UFC. But that’s just the type of guy White apparently is as I’ve spoken to several fighters off the record and have heard a lot of negative things about him.

Also, remember Chuck’s messed up interview with the TV station in Dallas a few months back? When they ask Chuck who he’d like to fight, in addition to Tommy Morrison, I swear he also said Vernon White, which had me in stitches because White is so far from being a top-level fighter that it’s ridiculous.

If Chuck went to rehab for addiction, Vernon White would probably be one of the last people to know.

For the entire interview, go to:

http://www.bloodyknux.com/forum/showthread.php?t=27224

UFC 71 fighters pass their drug tests

The Nevada State Athletic Commission tested Chuck Liddell, Quinton Jackson, Karo Parisyan, Josh Burkman, Alan Belcher, and Sean Salmon for steroids and banned stimulants prior to their respective bouts at UFC 71. All six passed.