You know what would be great? If everybody in this sport could just stop being awful all the time, that’s what. Seriously, this shit is getting fucking exhausting.
TMZ broke the story on Monday that former UFC light heavyweight champion Chuck Liddell was arrested over the weekend on domestic violence charges—and frankly, it was just another day in what has been a fairly soul-crushing news cycle for MMA fans lately.
Liddell’s arrest, of course, comes immediately after news that the UFC’s Luis Pena had been arrested for domestic violence (his second arrest this year) last week, which came immediately after news that Jon Jones had been arrested (again) for domestic violence last month, which came immediately after news that Jason “Mayhem” Miller had been arrested for domestic violence on Sept. 10 and, seriously you guys, what the fuck?
This is exactly the type of shit that makes you afraid to refresh your twitter timeline because half the time you find out someone you used to admire has done some terrible shit. Makes you afraid to google the UFC’s latest up-and-coming star for fear you’ll find out they’re into some Qanon bullshit or they think the vaccines are made from the tiny little angels of aborted fetuses or whatever.
Oh, that cool-seeming wrestler guy we all just found out about a few months ago? Turns out, he narrowly dodged allegations of sexual assault back in 2019.
The fun new guy from Dana White’s Contender Series? Oh, what’s this? He’s maybe sorta pro-beheading and was captured on video abusing a cat? Cool cool cool.
This Liddell one maybe even stings bit worse because unlike Jones or Miller or Pena, he doesn’t really have a history of this kind of thing. When a guy like Liddell gets arrested for domestic violence out of the blue early in the morning on a goddam Monday, it leaves the foggy, uncertain impression that maybe everybody in this sport is a dirtbag.
And that sucks real bad. Real bad.
The TMZ report had Liddell pumping his fist to reporters as he was released from jail Monday afternoon. So, that’s a thing that’s impossible to know how read. Last time we saw “The Iceman,” he was losing to Tito Ortiz in a fight for Golden Boy Promotions in 2018, where just from the way he was hitting the heavy bag during the prefight promos, you knew he wasn’t going to win. Hard to know what kind of physical or mental shape he’s been in these past few years.
But look, we all understand that to carry on being a combat sports fan occasionally takes some mental gymnastics. You have to find a way to make peace with the fact that a certain percentage of the people you’ll be watching are reprehensible. There’s some brain science to it, actually, and a few years ago I wrote a story for The Athletic about the process of “morally decoupling” what the athletes you admire do in the cage from what they do in life.
But this stuff? Gotta be honest. This makes it tough.
UPDATE: Liddell posted this to social media after his release.
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