UFC president Dana White was watching as Tito Ortiz scored a first-round knockout of Chuck Liddell in the first Golden Boy MMA fight.
He was not pleased, and his ire was directed toward fight promoter and boxing legend Oscar De La Hoya.
The fight was the third in the legendary fighters’ trilogy after they had previously fought in 2004 and 2006. The match lasted just 4:24, with 43-year-old Ortiz scoring a KO of his 48-year-old opponent.
In promotion for the bout, De La Hoya billed the fight as Liddell’s opportunity to choose when to retire, and took aim at the UFC’s pay structure.
“I heard last week, the cokehead, Oscar De La Weirdo, is talking s–t that I don’t have any place to tell guys when to retire,” White fumed on the UFC Unfiltered podcast. “First of all, it’s called friendship, you f—–g cokehead.”
“I’ve been friends with Chuck Liddell for 20 years, and the reality is that Chuck Liddell retired when he should have retired, eight, nine years ago, however long it was, and Chuck Liddell’s almost 50 years old and has no business fighting anymore. And the fact that the state of California even let that fight happen is disgusting — disgusting.”
White said he has not spoken to Liddell since the fight ended, but that didn’t stop him from his vehement opposition to the fight, and those involved in it.
“I hope somebody talks De La Hoya into fighting again,” White said. “I hope the state of California makes the fight, and I hope he gets knocked out just like Chuck Liddell in the first round. F—–g cokehead nutball.”