John Hackleman @ Chuck Liddell

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Some interesting stuff from Parley from the Pit, this paste is part of the article at http://www.knucklepit.com/mixed%20ma...0hackleman.htm



Prior to the start of UFC 47, John was hanging on the Octagon fence talking to Chuck. After offering Liddell a drink of water, John drank the majority of the bottle’s contents himself. "Well you know why?…I was more nervous than Chuck. Chuck didn’t get nervous for that fight. I kept trying to psych him out, and he just kept laughing the whole time.

"Even walking into the ring - you watch it – he was laughing. He turned around to me, ‘John, I’m going to knock him out. I guarantee it.’ I’ve never had that much confidence before a fight, much less have I’ve seen any of my other guys with that much confidence.

"I wanted him to get out there and not counter-punch like he tried to do against Randy Couture. We were getting off first in this one. We were initiating all the flurries. We were initiating right off the bat. If the guy even threw one punch in sparring, as you’ll see, Chuck had to go right back at him and not try to counter-punch. And I kept trying to tell Chuck that, and he kept saying, ‘Come on, John, I’m gonna knock him out. I guarantee I’m gonna knock him out.’ I tried to tell him, but he said, ‘John, settle down.’ I was much more nervous than he was," laughs Hackleman.

When Chuck Liddell defeated Tito Ortiz by knockout at UFC 47: It’s On! he appeared to have a totally different game plan from when he lost against Randy Couture in UFC 43: Meltdown. But Hackleman says there wasn’t any major change in strategy for Chuck’s fight against Tito.

"Did you see Rocky III? Remember when Stalone began winning his fights and all of a sudden he started training kinda fancy? He was just like kissing babies, hugging people and having pictures taken and signing autographs all the time. He got a little mentally soft, and then he went in against Clubber Lane and got KO’d.

"Well I feel Chuck was getting a little sidetracked. And Dana White was using him for a lot of publicity stuff. Chuck was spending most of his training time in Vegas signing autographs, kissing babies…living that life instead of what we’ve always done at The Pit: hardcore, hard-nosed training. That’s what The Pit is known for. I mean, The Pit’s in my backyard. It’s just a little gym with a bag and a cage, but…"

John says for the Liddell v Ortiz fight, both Chuck and he believed they’d have to go back to the basics. They knew their approach had been on track in the past and that they’d have to return to employing these same training principles.

"For this fight we agreed we’d have to go back to what worked and back to the old school. And we just put him in the backyard and started working his arse off every day like we used to. Nothing fancy, just punching the bag, sparring, hardcore running…just like the old days. And that’s all he did: nothing fancy, nothing new."

[PizDoff]

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