New Ortiz, Same Result as Liddell Stops ‘The Huntington Beach Bad Boy’

By Thomas Gerbasi

LAS VEGAS, December 30 – Tito Ortiz came to fight tonight, and as he admitted afterwards, he brought his ‘A’ game. But when you’re facing the best light heavyweight on the planet, sometimes that’s just not enough, as Chuck Liddell defended his UFC crown for the fourth time with a third round TKO of Ortiz before a sell-out crowd of 14,607 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in their long-awaited rematch.

“This is the most satisfying win of my career,” said Liddell who knocked Ortiz out in two rounds in their first bout on April 2, 2004.

But even though Ortiz, a former UFC light heavyweight champion, showed courage and improved stand up in the UFC 66 main event, it just wasn’t enough to answer to the power of Liddell.

“I’m kind of disgusted with myself because I let my fans down,” said Ortiz. “Chuck’s the best pound for pound fighter in the world and I’ve got to give that to him.”

Ortiz opened the action 30 seconds in with a leg kick, and seconds later ate his first thunder from Liddell, who shook off a follow-up takedown attempt. Ortiz continued to move forward, but Liddell calmly countered his offensive rushes. Midway through the round, Ortiz found success with his leg kicks and Liddell began to move forward more purposefully, drawing a roar from the crowd as he cut a retreating Ortiz over the left eye and closed in for the kill. Moments later, it appeared that the end had arrived as Liddell put the challenger on the canvas with a left to the temple and pounded away furiously with both hands as referee Mario Yamasaki watched the action closely. Incredibly though, Ortiz survived the onslaught and made it to his feet, the crowd erupting as the bell rang.

Almost immediately going for the takedown to begin the second, Ortiz was again rebuked as Liddell avoided the mat with chants of “Chuck, Chuck” reverberating through the arena. Perhaps looking to conserve energy for the later rounds, the fighters’ pace soon became more measured, though each punch was still being thrown with fight-ending intent. With under a minute to go, Ortiz finally got Liddell to the mat, but ‘The Iceman’ easily made it back to his feet and out of danger to ride out the round.

Ortiz’ customary early round takedown attempt in the third was turned away yet again, but this time Liddell jumped in and flurried on the grounded challenger. ‘The Huntington Beach Bad Boy’ again showed no fear of the champion as he swung back with a hard haymaker, but Ortiz’ ineffectiveness securing takedowns was proving to be his downfall though, as Liddell took every opportunity to make the challenger pay every time he missed one. With under two minutes to go, Ortiz made his final mistake as he attempted to get into a firefight with Liddell and paid for it, as the champion sent his challenger to the canvas, where a final barrage forced Yamasaki to halt the bout at 3:59 of the third stanza.

“I had him hurt and I just kept throwing punches,” said Liddell, who led on one scorecard 20-18 at the end of two rounds, with the other two judges seeing the bout even at 19-19.

With the win, Liddell improves to 20-3; Ortiz falls to 16-5.