Tito Ortiz announces that he’s coming out of retirement, wants the Chuck Liddell trilogy fight

Eight years ago we expected to be seeing one of MMA’s most heated rivalries cap off via trilogy. That rivalry being Chuck Liddell vs Tito Ortiz after season 11 of The Ultimate Fighter.

Little did we know that we could very well be getting that trilogy’s conclusion in 2018…

Ortiz took to Instagram today to announce that he’s officially coming out of retirement and hopes to get the fight with Liddell under an Oscar De La Hoya promoted MMA event.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bip20oinG9R/?utm_source=ig_embed

I want to give the fans the fight they have been waiting for #TitovsChuck3 #Redemption thanks to @primetime360esm with @get_repost
Tito Ortiz is officially out of a year long retirement. While on @BitetheMic with @MikeTyson and @Tattootheone Tito was asked if he was going to fight @chuckliddell -Tito replied why doesn’t @OscarDeLaHoya @GoldenBoyBoxing get into #MMA and promote the fight. Oscar should promote it and give the fans what they want Tito Ortiz vs Chuck Liddell 3.

De La Hoya did indeed announce recently that he’s hoping to start a Golden Boy MMA as opposed to his normal Golden Boy Boxing.

Ortiz and Liddell didn’t get to fight for a third time due to an Ortiz injury that kicked him from the season of TUF to be replaced by former UFC middleweight champion, Rich Franklin. Frankin would come in and defeat Liddell in what would be his retirement fight from the UFC.

Liddell and Ortiz squared off against one another in 2004 and 2006 with both fights seeing “the Iceman” as the victor by way of knockout.

Both are about as legendary of MMA figures as you could possibly have, but for Ortiz, his retirement has been much more short-lived than Liddell’s to this point. Ortiz’ last fight was in January 2017 when he defeated Chael Sonnen by first-round submission.

This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 5/11/2018.