Liddell went through his 12 year career with the same Mohawk, the same trainer (John Hackleman), the same friends, and the same attitude. That’s rare in a day and age where image and spin is everything. I think I’m a normal guy, and I try to be as normal as I can.” Plus I still live in the same small town, and things like that (celebrity) aren’t really that big a deal around here. “They knew me when I was the guy going to college and working behind the bar. “I’ve got a lot of friends that I’ve hung out with for 10-15 years that still hang out with me, and I don’t think they’d let me start acting like a jerk,” he told me in 2006. Sure, the bank account’s bigger, the clubs are nicer, and the trappings of fame more expensive – both literally and figuratively – but of anyone in professional sports today, Liddell has remained true to what got him here in the first place. Today, everyone knows who Chuck Liddell is camera crews follow him around, flocks of reporters jot down his every word, but remarkably, he remains the same person he was in 2001. The day after the rules meeting, Liddell knocked out former UFC heavyweight champion Kevin Randleman in 78 seconds, and it was the beginning of his transition from California cult hero to worldwide mixed martial arts superstar. My nephew, who was shooting pictures for me at the time, thought there was nothing cooler than the tattoo on the side of Liddell’s head - the kanji symbols for “place of peace and prosperity” – and not only did he photograph it, he went on to have a casual conversation with him about everything but fighting. There were no camera crews following him, no flock of reporters jotting down his every word – he was just another fighter in a room full of them, competing in a sport that wasn’t even back on pay-per-view yet. The first time I ran into Chuck Liddell, it was at the then-customary rules meeting before his May 2001 bout with Kevin Randleman. Thankfully, Liddell will still remain in the UFC as the organization’s Executive Vice President of Business Development, but for the moment, it’s time to reflect back on the fighting career of “The Iceman” with a host of his defining moments and what he meant to the sport he helped build into the juggernaut it is today. Fittingly, the end came in Las Vegas, where he had made his name as a fighting icon, a mohawked bearer of destruction who terrorized the 205-pound weight class for years. Wednesday afternoon marked the end of an era in UFC and mixed martial arts history, as Hall of Famer and former light heavyweight champion Chuck “The Iceman” Liddell announced his retirement from the sport at the age of 41.
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