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Chuck Liddell UFC Champ Turned Actor |
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Written by MMAWeekly.com
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Tuesday, 08 May 2007 |
 If UFC Light-Heavyweight Champion
Chuck Liddell isn’t careful, he might ease his way into becoming a
household name in homes throughout the United States and abroad in the
near future. Liddell has transcended the world of fighting and has
crossed over into TV, radio and movies very successfully, especially in
recent months.
‘The Iceman’ has always been
recognized around MMA circles as a man with a true warrior’s spirit who
simply loves being a fighter, but in addition to his recent wins over
Jeremy Horn, Renato ‘Babalu’ Sobral (x2), Tito Ortiz (x2) and Randy
Couture (x2), Liddell seems to have caught the acting bug.
Liddell has had a number of on-screen appearances lately, but his most recent one came by way of HBO’s popular series Entourage. Liddell said that he initially asked the higher-ups of Entourage
simply for a walk-through cameo on the show, but the producers liked
the idea of Liddell being one of the centers of an episode and wrote a
majority of the script around the MMA superstar.
Chuck
said, “I thought it was pretty cool…a couple of my friends watched it
and they thought that the car scene was the only part that I was in
it…they laughed hard after that.”
There
is little doubt that one of the scenes that UFC fans got a kick out of
was the final one, in which the “re-emerging” ex-superstar “Johnny
Drama” is forced into the Octagon with Liddell for a bit of a payback
grudge match. Chuck makes “Drama” get on his knees and ask for
forgiveness – which he does – but as everyone who watched knows, Chuck
was simply a pawn in Pauly Shore’s hidden camera show, “Gotcha!”
Chuck
looks to be growing into himself as an actor and has a good stage
presence, so does that mean that Liddell may hang up his gloves to
follow a career in Hollywood?
“I don’t know about that, I’m still a fighter,” Liddell said, ”I’m a fighter first, then I do that stuff.”
It
was definitely refreshing to see the UFC portrayed in such a positive
light on the show with all of the media-based trash talk that is
floating around as of late. Chuck said, “I was very happy with it, I
thought it went real well.”
Liddell can’t bask in the glory of his Entourage
debut for too long, though, because perhaps the biggest fight of
Chuck’s decorated career, his rematch with Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson,
is only a couple of weeks away.
Liddell
will meet Jackson in the Octagon on May 26th in an attempt to erase the
only loss on his record that he has yet to get back. According to
Liddell, his training is right on schedule and he is ready to get back
in the ring with ‘Rampage.’
Chuck
said, “Training is great. I’m in great shape…ready to go.” The ‘Iceman’
will need to display great cardio and a good game plan if he plans for
the outcome of this upcoming fight to be any different than the first
time these two men met.
So what is Chuck’s prediction for Liddell/Jackson II?
“I’ll
be prepared for five, but I don’t think that it’s going to get anywhere
close to that,” Liddell said, “It should be over in one or two…I’m
going to knock him out.”
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