Was Chuck Liddell ever the best LHW in the World?

[kflo]

Chuck, shogun, wand, randy, hendo, rampage, vitor…..anyone of them could win in a given night and depending on health. Even Tito and overeem. Based on record and streak there was a reason to put chuck in the top group until rampage 2.

 

[mkt]

Good points here. Especially the fact no one is mentioning Chucks 2nd loss to Rampage was when he was about to go on a horrible streak , losing 6 of his next 7 fights, and retiring.

He was definitely not in his prime at 37 YO.

There is a whole 8 years between Chuck and Rampage.

I hate how people dont use the correct context when discussing the past.

Yep. Skill-wise, I think Chuck peaked between the two Rampage fights. I think it's possible he could've won if Rampage had a bad night (which he sometimes did), say around 2004 or something. But I have to give Rampage the edge due to the first fight. And Chuck lost to Randy once as well...people forget that. If Randy wasn't in his 40s for his fights vs. Chuck, they may have gone differently.

 

[kflo]

At one point Chuck might have “deserved” the ranking of 1, but most people figured Rampage could take him again in the rematch, and Shogun was only knocked off by injuries. I think the Rampage KO showed Chuck was never truly the #1 guy, although he was incredibly fun to watch and would fight anyone the UFC could throw at him.

He was betting favorite against rampage for the rematch.

 

[Lee_]

You're using that fight to make a judgement about a previous time period. Again, if you were a fan at the time and believed it then that's great, but don't go talking about using Fight Finder when that's basically what you're doing.

No, my argument is flying over your head. What I am doing is pointing out that MMAth is stupid, and doesn't prove anything. I was using that as a counterpoint to show your MMAth doesn't prove anything.

There was no definitive best at LHW at the time like there was at HW because you have too many great guys all beating each other. But Chuck certainly ha a claim to being the best when he was UFC champ, and MANY thought he was. There were many debating right here on Sherdog that he was the best. You can opine any way you want, but none of your MMAth proves that he wasn't.

 

[JKS]

From 2001 to 2005 it was between him and Wanderlei. The thing is that Rampage beat Chuck and then within a span of a year, Wanderlei KO'd Rampage. Although, Chuck and Wand didn't fight in that time span, just based on that Wand was #1. The rankings had Wand at #1.

Now around 2006 to 2007 when Chuck was defending his belt on top, he may have been #1 in the world at that time.

 

[Sweater of AV]

No, my argument is flying over your head. What I am doing is pointing out that MMAth is stupid, and doesn't prove anything. I was using that as a counterpoint to show your MMAth doesn't prove anything.

There was no definitive best at LHW at the time like there was at HW because you have too many great guys all beating each other. But Chuck certainly ha a claim to being the best when he was UFC champ, and MANY thought he was. There were many debating right here on Sherdog that he was the best. You can opine any way you want, but none of your MMAth proves that he wasn't.

I'm not using MMA math. I'm saying there was no time period in which I believed he was clearly the best in the world and using actual examples from that time. You on the other hand are using examples after the fact.

You're also an inconsistent mess.

There was no definitive best at LHW at the time

he was ranked at the top for good reason at one time.

Take the time to think in the future.

 

[dogsdonutsdragons]

I wasn't watching mma back in the day when chuck was on top. But watching old events and behind the scene stuff on fightpass from that era makes it seem like Chuck was the best LHW in the world. Well he did defend the LHW belt 4 times which was a record until Jones broke it. But he never avenged his loss to rampage and he didn't get to fight prime Shogun and Wanderlei. So it's kind of a mystery. But what u guys think, was chuck the best LHW in the world during his title reign? Or was there someone better?

chucks title reign could have been much longer. tito ruined that. he ended up fighting silva and winning. imo even though the fight came to late it showed prime for prime chucks style was a problem for wand. but then prime rampage was a problem for chuck. prime randy before he went to chinny as well. chuck was legit but so were a lot of these other guys during his time. would have liked to see him fight shogun but lets be real here when pride was a thing their choice fighters were heavily pushed and favorably matched. Wand's record is full of filler and as far as the ufc goes chuck was one of their biggest stars for so long they matched him with grappler after grappler for years. so imo this era of the sport was heavily influenced by the ones in charge and it was less sport than people realize. i kind see the entire sport this way these days. its not so much a sport anymore but it never really was. its entertainment.

 

[NGute87]

No, but chuck was awesome in his era.

 

[Exarch01]

He had a case. For those saying Wanderlei> rampage > Liddell that’s obviously not entirely true. Could just as easily say Chuck > Tito > Wanderlei.

Chuck was always a bad matchup for wanderlei, and at Ufc 79 he beat Wand. Neither were quite in their prime anymore. You could also argue that prime Rampage was 2007ish after refining his boxing, so the greener version that lost to Wand may have beaten him prime for prime.

Styles make fights, they were in separate orgs, and Rampage is a mercurial cat, so it’s really hard to say. Chuck beat Couture twice and Tito twice. Both likely do very well against Wanderlei.

I think Wanderlei had the best claim before shogun, but yeah, rampage and Chuck each had a claim too.

Don't forget Randy > Vitor > Wanderlei.

The LHW division in the early/mid 00s was insane. You could pick any two fighters in the top 15 and they'd have a competitive match against each other.

 

[HavokHarmon]

You guys are missing some context on this topic. Let me fill you in, TS.

It was a very competitive time in the LHW division. There was always someone out there that could beat someone despite being a top guy. What I mean is that you could beat someone but lose to a guy that lost to someone you beat.

I'm willing to give Chuck his due and say that at one point, he had a fair claim to being considered the best. He didn't duck or dodge anyone and always wanted to fight. It wasn't his fault there were two top organizations at the time.

And yes, he lost to Rampage twice. The first time, he wasn't the champ and the second time, Rampage improved a lot. I think somewhere in between Chuck had a fair claim to being the best until Rampage beat him the second time. By this point, Rampage had even surpassed Wand.

The case could be made for Wand too. It's fair but I always favored Chuck over Wand stylistically. When they finally fought, they were at the same stage in their careers.

I know some will disagree but at least I provided some context. It's a more complicated question to answer than it seems on the surface.

I love this topic and these are all excellent points. This was a period of time when the best fighters in weight class were divided between two orgs with different rule sets favoring different styles (UFC- Chuck, Tito and Randy, Pride- Wand, Rampage and Shogun). Yes there was probably a time period where Chuck was #1 but for this group of fighters that just means he was most likely to beat the highest number of top fighters in his weight; we’re kind of spoiled today with dominance but during this time I don’t think there was any one fighter who clearly stood above the rest.

Under UFC rules Tito and Randy both beat Wand. Under Pride rules I still think Randy beats him, but Wand beats Rampage and (imo) Chuck in Pride rules. Chuck beats Randy and Tito under either ruleset (nothing in their fights indicated to me that a rule change would alter the outcome of their fights although I may be wrong), loses to Rampage and Wand under Pride rules and loses to Rampage under UFC rules. Randy beats all of them except Chuck and Rampage under either ruleset.

Then we have Shogun and I don’t even know how to rank him in this group. I think he’s capable of beating everyone in both groups under either ruleset but he’s also more than capable of losing to everyone depending on what shape he shows up in because his dominance was bookended by injury and a period of still being green.

The whole debate just makes me wish that we had events held under different rulesets and single night tourneys. Greatness can be measure so many different ways it’s a shame we’ve been pared down to just one; UFC performance.

 

[johny ringo]

Two things

1. People were so insanely captivated by Pride fighters that they overrated them
2. PEDs. Even though it was pre-USADA, the UFC still had testing but Pride never did. It was a reality check and some of those fighters definitely looked a bit smaller in the UFC.

One of my favorite Rampage moments was when he was being interviewed. They said Chucks saying there will be a first round KO and rampage said something along the lines of…:if he wants to get knocked out in the first round that’s his business.

 

[NoSmilez]

Chuck beat up Wanderlei by merit of him punching slightly straighter than Wanderlei. Don't give me this prime bullshit as if Chuck wasn't damaged goods by then.

 

[Local Plata]

It was a weird time. Lots of people considered Wanderlei to be the best LHW, but anyone with a brain knows Chuck would have fucking killed Wand. But Rampage would always beat Chuck ... a Wand would always beat rampage. That was kind of the weird triangle of the top LHWs for awhile there. Its worth mentioning two of the three were juiced as fuck, though.

 

[Franklin U.]

No.

However- he was the biggest UFC star at one point .

 

[NoBiasJustMMA]

No, Wanderlei was ranked number 1 most of the time Liddell was champion and then Shogun was ranked number 1. I'm not even sure if Liddell was ranked 2nd, most of the best 205ers of his era were in Pride.

 

[Dorkman]

Some thought he was but it was far from consensus. Which really wasn't uncommon for the time given the talent divide and the biases people had for one org or another.

 

[Bowel-forged Stool]

As I remember it, during the time of Chuck being ufc champ and wand being pride champ, Shogun was considered the best lhw in the world. He would not take the belt from his team mate wand.

 

[cws80us]

During the height of Chuck's UFC title reign, Wanderlei was his counterpart in Pride. There were a couple of attempts to put together a fight between the 2, but it never came to fruition. Who knows what would've happened had they fought. Shogun was probably considered to be the best at that time too, but he and Wand were teammates, so he never got a chance to fight for the Pride belt.

 

[Carl25]

Nope. Wand > Rampage > Liddell. Don't @ me

uh so Hendo>wand>rampage>Chuck ?

There's a reason in their PRIDE fight that Rampage beat Chuck on the ground and not standing

 

[TheTickG]

Mark Coleman> Shogun> Arona> Silva> Rampage> Chuck> Tito> Silva> Rampage> Chuck> Courture> Belfort> Lennox Lewis> Mike Tyson> Larry Holmes> Muhammad Ali=Greatest in the World

MMA Math is amazing.