[i]Chuck Liddell is training with American Top Team in a bid to get back on track after his knockout loss to Rashad Evans at UFC 88.
The news was revealed by his coach John Hackleman, who trains and manages Liddell at The Pit, the gym he represents when he fights.
Hackleman appeared on FightHype to answer questions from fans, one of which was whether Liddell was trying to round his skills out by training with ATT.
"Yeah, you learn something new wherever you train. He's always cross-trained and had people come in. He will definitely learn from Liborio and Matt," replied Hackleman.[/i]
Will it make a difference this late in his career???
Like you said it’s a bit late to start, but it all depends on the individual. If he is pliable enough, then yeah, training elsewhere could make a small difference. I don’t see it being a huge difference because of how late he started. I haven’t seen many videos of Chuck training in other ways besides his stuff with Hackleman, so to make a blanket statement and say ‘no’ would be too big of a generalization.
Some of his biggest weak points OUTSIDE of his physical style of training, is his game plan. Lately fighters have adapted to his unorthodox(or was at least)style of fighting. Guys came into the ring with prescribed style of fight, and guess what. It worked. Hopefully guys at ATT devise a new route for chuck, otherwise that upper-cut set up will continue to be a large chink in his armor.
If you watch chucks earlier fights. He has a very broad skill set. He sprawled, shot for takedowns, threw great high kicks, fished for subs, worked GnP. He’s just gotten stagnate ESPECIALLY with this game plans.
Hackleman is right he does cross train quite a bit…Shit he trained with Eddie Bravo for a little while and the “Half and Half” was something Liddell came up with… but his strategies are predictable, he’s become relient on shoddy skills designed for less well rounded athletes dependent on his ability to ‘catch’ someone.
So IMO, this change may ACTUALLY have a great effect on his game. If he USES the new skill set he develops which is yet to be seen. THAT is the biggest thing he has to deal with. Actually putting the shit he learns to use. He has the athletic ability.
I personally would have gone to Sityodtong, Boston or Xtreme Couture. It’s not like ATT is bad though lol…
If he had a great gameplanner (sorry hackleman) and it was just skillsets he needed to work on then he could shit like anderson silva and just go work on individual aspects… Silva just spent time in thailand to work on his thaiboxing and is spending time with Freddie Roach to sharpen up his boxing. But he already puts everything together so beautifully that he can work on just small attributes.
If you watch chucks earlier fights. He has a very broad skill set. He sprawled, shot for takedowns, threw great high kicks, fished for subs, worked GnP. He’s just gotten stagnate ESPECIALLY with this game plans.
Hackleman is right he does cross train quite a bit…Shit he trained with Eddie Bravo for a little while and the “Half and Half” was something Liddell came up with… but his strategies are predictable, he’s become relient on shoddy skills designed for less well rounded athletes dependent on his ability to ‘catch’ someone.
So IMO, this change may ACTUALLY have a great effect on his game. If he USES the new skill set he develops which is yet to be seen. THAT is the biggest thing he has to deal with. Actually putting the shit he learns to use. He has the athletic ability.
I personally would have gone to Sityodtong, Boston or Xtreme Couture. It’s not like ATT is bad though lol…
If he had a great gameplanner (sorry hackleman) and it was just skillsets he needed to work on then he could shit like anderson silva and just go work on individual aspects… Silva just spent time in thailand to work on his thaiboxing and is spending time with Freddie Roach to sharpen up his boxing. But he already puts everything together so beautifully that he can work on just small attributes.
Chuck imo needs a fucking overhaul.
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Good points. He should of done this shit 2-3 years ago.
Yea you’re right. Except that 2-3 yrs ago he didn’t really need it. he was fighting all the same kinda guys that his counter punching low hand strategy worked great against.
He should have been developing new skils that ENTIRE time though…even if he just had one strategy… He didn’t really or at least didn’t apply them at all. It’s like the HammerHouse guys (coleman, randleman) they’ve been in the MMA game for like 10-12 years enough time to be BJJ blackbelts and fucking standup phenoms. But they’re still essentially just REALLY good wrestlers. When a guy like randleman if he took the time to develop could have been the best in the world…like fedor-esque level… point blank period.
Chuck’s not too late in his career to be doing this. But if he had done it earlier I don’t think we would have ever seen the decline that he’s in now.
The game is CONSTANTLY evolving. 2 years from now it’s going to be something totally different. And it really looks like it is every 2 years that we see a constant change. So you have to be constantly innovating. Fight game moves on technology industry speed… Your pentium 4 isn’t shit to my quad-core…etc.
The fundamentals are ALWAYS there but we’re going to start seeing crazier and crazier stuff.