On Dec. 30 at UFC 207, Ronda Rousey will make her highly anticipated return to the octagon when she squares off against women’s bantamweight champion Amanda Nunes.
But despite all the hype, UFC legend Chuck Liddell told TMZ he wouldn’t bet on Rousey, as he believes she should have eased herself back instead of jumping into a match of this magnitude.
“I wouldn’t take the chance on her being (recovered) from all the mental stuff,” Liddell told TMZ, as transcribed by FOX Sports. “Personally, as a coach, I’d like to have seen her come back — it’s harder at her stature to take a lower-level fight — but I would have liked to see her come back in a smaller fight. I would have tried to get her a warm up fight. Just to get her mentally back into the game. Because Amanda Nunes is a tough, tough opponent.”
This will be Rousey’s first fight since she lost to Holly Holm on Nov. 15 of last year. Liddell believes her year-long hiatus is a major red flag.
“The thing that worries me is, a guy like (Jose) Aldo gets knocked out and he wanted to fight that day,” Liddell added. “He wanted another shot at it that day. That’s a guy that’s got it together up here — ‘I made a mistake, I know what I did wrong, I want to win now.’ She … she folded, I don’t know what happened to her. Personally, with all the stuff afterward and the way she handled it and the way things went — I’d be nervous.”
Thumbnail photo via Joe Camporeale/USA TODAY Sports Images
