This Day in MMA History: June 12

On paper, the main event of UFC 115 seemed like a solid fight. While the matchup of Chuck Liddell and Rich Franklin had only been made when Tito Ortiz, who had coached opposite Liddell on the latest season of “The Ultimate Fighter,” had been forced to withdraw due to a neck injury, it was arguably a more interesting fight. Liddell and Franklin were two of the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s biggest stars and most accomplished fighters. Both were former champs who had lost their titles around the same time: Franklin in late 2006, Liddell in early 2007. They were approximately the same size; despite Franklin’s name being synonymous with the middleweight division due to his title run there, both men had spent the majority of their careers at light heavyweight.

Beyond those surface details, however, it is clear that Liddell-Ortiz 3 would have been a better matchup, or at least a fairer one. The differences between Liddell’s and Franklin’s career arcs were stark, and in hindsight, it is difficult to fathom that Franklin was a slight underdog going into the bout. While both men were three or four years removed from their respective title reigns, Franklin was 35 years old and still within shouting distance of his competitive prime. He had lost the middleweight belt not because he had slipped, but because Anderson Silva had arrived. Once he lost his rematch with Silva, Franklin was something of a man without a home: still capable of beating Top 10 middleweights, but lacking a clear path back to a title shot. Franklin responded by moving back up in weight, fighting at light heavyweight—as he had done at the beginning of his career and his early UFC run—as well as a 195-pound catchweight that fans affectionately dubbed “Franklinweight.”

In contrast, Liddell was showing clear signs of decline. “The Iceman” was 40, and it was not a young 40. A decade-plus of wars in the cage and a champ’s lifestyle outside of it had taken their toll. His title loss to Quinton Jackson at UFC 71 had ushered in a 1-4 run in which the three of the four losses were brutal knockouts and the only win was over Wanderlei Silva, who was nearly as dilapidated as Liddell himself. It was an alarming sign, as Liddell had never been unhittable even in his prime. His trademark had always been numbing power and the ability to withstand enough return fire to deliver it, so back-to-back losses to Mauricio Rua and Rashad Evans in which Liddell had been completely short-circuited by single strikes should have been a harbinger of things to come.

However, when Liddell walked into the cage in Vancouver on June 12, 2010, it was as a -150 favorite. It had been a little over a year since his last fight, the loss to “Shogun,” and Liddell looked to be in outstanding physical shape. He looked like a man renewed, and for a few minutes he fought like it, giving at least as well as he got in the early going. Liddell looked aggressive, throwing a variety of strikes including some whipping kicks to the body and head, once of which broke Franklin’s forearm. With less than a minute left, however, everything came to a halt. Franklin fought off a Liddell level change against the fence and threw a short right hook that landed on Liddell’s chin. “The Iceman” was out instantly, his synapses scrambled just as Rua and Evans had done.

In the wake of the knockout, Liddell retired, under considerable pressure from his longtime boss and friend, UFC president Dana White. He would remain retired for over eight years, before returning for that trilogy fight with his old nemesis Ortiz under the banner of Golden Boy MMA. Though Liddell had won their first two meetings in dominant fashion, he would end up losing the third—once again, being knocked unconscious by strikes on the feet. Franklin would fight three more times, going 1-2, before retiring in 2012 at age 38. He currently serves as a vice president at One Championship, where one of his duties is overseeing “ONE Warrior Series,” a show featuring up-and-coming prospects.