I was watching the Chuck vs Tito 30 for 30 on ESPN, and it made me feel a million different things, and I started to ponder why it was so powerful to me. First, it is obviously the fact that I was such a big fan of the sport when their rivalry was ongoing. I was invested with friends as we were on different sides as far as our favorite fighter. Tito basically got me over the hump as a fan of MMA. I really liked the sport for how raw and real it was. The most pure form of human combat. Then when he arrived and started to become successful, it was different. He was very charismatic (cocky) but it was so new to see so much personality mixed with success. I jumped right on board, and although looking back I see how silly he was and how limited his skillset was, in some way it almost makes it more intriguing. Most of my friends who liked the sport were fans of Chuck Liddell. The iceman was just that, cold and quiet. Like a hitman on the job. In hindsight, I am a huge fan of his, and I don’t think I would have been such a fan if he wouldn’t have done what he had in the sport. Just total domination with a straight forward marauding style, and it was beautiful.
Of course the turning point of nostalgic joy to partial sadness, like in most sport documentaries was toward the end. When they fell. It happens so fast in sport, maybe faster than any other profession that I’m aware of. You work, in this case for upwards of 30 years to reach that peak. To be the best of the best. How impossible is that for a regular person like me to comprehend. Most elite athletes believe they can be that at a young age, and they push so incredibly hard to make it reality. And at the culmination, if everything has fallen into place, they are now the BEST. In the goddamn WORLD. That is insane. Nobody can beat them and their weight, and conceivably if they’re a heavyweight — they are the baddest person on Earth. If they meet any man, in history, on the street, they can beat them in a hand to hand fight to the death. INSANE. I say anyone in history because like most sports people progress and get better as a whole over time, as the training and competition gets better, to go along with the diet, nutrition, and basic physical advantages of the current time, it would make sense that whoever is the current champion is just better by default than their predecessors. So Tito was there. Living on top of the world in his sport. The biggest name, and the brightest light. And then he fell to Randy Couture after he kinda ducked Chuck. Everyone agrees that he knew that he couldn’t beat Chuck, and he didn’t want the ride to end, so he started negotiating contracts and calling Chuck his friend after their friendship had ended and they had agreed to fight. After the fight with Randy, Tito hit rock bottom. But this gave him that new motivation, to fight back to the top, after he had been there for a while. It made the fight with Chuck a new milestone I believe. I think the fight with Randy was the best thing that could have happened to him. He won some fights, and got closer to the top of that mountain again, and the general consensus was that this time, Chuck is an obstacle on that mountain, and if Tito wanted the life back that he once had and revelled in, then he had to go through Chuck, and then the man that took it all away. I think this motivated him to a new level. So now Tito and Chuck had both lost to Randy and had to fight to see who got the shot to dethrone him. Tito was in incredible shape, and was highly motivated, but most likely something deep down still told him that this fight was nearly impossible to win. Chuck had fairly effortlessly beat him in training before, and mentally he had that edge. On fight night, that is exactly how it played out. Like we all knew that it would. Me as a Tito fan was highly disappointed that he couldn’t get it done, and basically didn’t even put up much of a fight. But I respected Chuck and what he had done. He was a machine, and after a rematch to avenge the loss against Randy, and capture the world title, he was now on top of the world. Tito started his descent and never got closer to the top of the mountain that he once sat on top of than he did that night against Chuck. Liddell was now the man. He had dominated everyone and avenged his only recent loss to Randy. People feared him, and you could see it. One after another he knocked his opponent out and did his patented Iceman celebration with his arms out wide at waist level and a scream as he ran backwards. It was pure. It was a feeling that few will ever feel. To know, that you’re the best and realize that everyone else knows it, including your opponents. He was king, and what feeling could possibly surpass that? When he fell the first time, we all thought it was a fluke and he would be back. Regain his spot on top, and be the king that we all expected. But it didn’t happen. He didn’t regain his crown, he didn’t dominate and put fear into everyone who stood across from him. He fell, and fell again. Each time more painful and hard to watch as the last. His physical prime had come and gone, and he was a shell of himself as an athlete. Like most athletes that at some point reach the top, I believe that he regularly convinced himself that it was still there, that he could still reach those heights that he once did, and he continued to try, and try again.
I know that in real life it bothered me to see both of these guys go through what they did. To lose what they had and fall so fast. The sport just passing them by at a rapid pace. From the main event and your picture on the poster, to an undercard fight that not many people care too much about. But it was when I watched the documentary that I started to really feel all of the feelings that you get when you watch a person fall so fast, and not have an answer. Not really know where to go and what to do. It must be the most gut wrenching thing to wake up and know, that you can never get that back. A lot of achievements in life, if lost, can be regained. But with sport, that isn’t reality. Once it is gone, it is gone forever. Your body can’t age backward, and you will never feel the way that you once did. You can’t be better at 50 than you can at 30. Maybe one day, but for the foreseeable future, we are fucked. It is no more obvious than in sports. That fact literally breaks my heart every time that I think about it deeply. Just to see an athlete, a competitor, a champion, and know that they will never be what they once were. Everyone gets old, weak, ugly, and slow, but the outlier athletes are such a uniquely sad story. To observe Chuck while he watched his comeback fight (he looked terrible and got KO’d by Tito. He was 48) was so damn sad to me. He looked broken and confused as tears filled his eyes. All that he wants is to train for 10 weeks, put on the gear, walk to the cage, and destroy the man that they call the champ. But that day will never come. The day where he could beat anyone in any major organization will never come. He knows that either consciously or subconsciously, but who knows if he can ever accept it. That is the hardest thing for me, is that these men can’t find an outlet. No way to scratch that itch. They can do commentary, or be a highly successful coach, but it just never reaches the same level. I know that most former athletes eventually find their peace, but I also know that many of them never really do. They fall asleep thinking about what used to be. It took so long to get good, and it took so much dedication to be great, and then it’s gone. Life is like Mike Tyson walking in and sucker punching you in the back of the head. You didn’t see it coming, and even if you did, you’re still fucked.