Odds | Tito Ortiz opens as favorite over Chuck Liddell ahead of potential rematch

Earlier this week, former UFC light heavyweight champ Chuck Liddell confirmed what we’ve all suspected for so long: he’s coming back.

Liddell dropped this bomb on The MMA Hour.

“I will fight again,” he told host Ariel Helwani on the show.

The expectation, of course, is that Liddell will rematch his former rival Tito Ortiz in his comeback fight — potentially in Oscar De La Hoya’s new mixed martial arts promotion. While this rematch certainly isn’t officially just yet, odds for this potential trilogy fight have already been released. And though Liddell won the pair’s first two fights — emphatically, in fact — he’s been pegged as the underdog in a potential third fight with Ortiz.

The Sportsbook Bovada has identified Liddell as a +160 underdog, while Ortiz has been pegged as a -200 favorite. This essentially means that a successful $100 bet on Liddell would earn you $160, while a successful $200 bet on Ortiz would earn you $100.

While Ortiz seems to be the most likely opponent for Chuck Liddell’s controversial comeback fight, Liddell admitted on The MMA Hour that his comeback doesn’t hinge on Ortiz’s involvement.

“I kinda hadn’t really thought about it much,” Liddell said of his comeback. “And then when [Ortiz] brought it up and we started getting going, and I started training and I started doing stuff again, getting ready to try to take this on, it made me go, ‘You know what, what if he pulls out? Am I not going to fight? Am I going to do all of this and not fight?’ Oh no, we had to have somebody backing up, and if it doesn’t work out with him, I’m [still] going to give it a shot. It’ll be somebody else, one of the guys from my past probably, most likely, and we’ll see where I’m at.”

“It does not hinge on Tito’s participation,” he added.

Do you think Chuck Liddell can pick up a win in his comeback fight?

This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 5/16/2018.