THE ICEMAN GOETH
"If Chuck loses on Saturday, he will retire." - UFC President Dana White putting Chuck Liddell on watch. Mauricio "Shogun" Rua knocked out Liddell in the first round of their fight at UFC 97. (Off the Record)
"I mean, he’s going to have to go out there and dazzle me, for me to want Chuck to still fight." - White. Suffice it to say, Chuck did not dazzle Dana on Saturday. (Canadian Press)
"Everybody knows my relationship with him, and it was basically I was saying it, you know, out of friendship." - White (Versus)
"People were like, ' Oh, so you're going to kick Chuck Liddell to the curb?' Far from it. Whether he's fighting or retired, he's going to be with the UFC till I'm dead." - White, who better hope Strikeforce doesn't have a boatload of money sitting in Scott Coker's basement.
"We'll talk about it Monday, Tuesday. But, this could be my last time." - Liddell, with his first signs considering retirement. (UFC.com)
"Tonight was the end of an era. One of the greatest guys in the sport fought his last fight tonight." - White (UFC.com)
"I love fighting." - Liddell, before the Rua fight, with an emotional, fitting, and poetic line which should be chiseled onto his tombstone. (USA Today)
ARE THEY SAYING "BOO" OR "BOO-URNS"?
"I can honestly tell you that I’ve never put on an event that I was embarrassed to be at until tonight." - UFC President Dana White with a harsh criticism of the UFC 97 main event between Anderson Silva and Thales Leites. (Yahoo)
"I will be ready to fight stand-up, I will be there to fight in any situation." - Leites, who was in no way prepared to fight standing up. (MMA Weekly)
"He wasn't able to execute his game and I was able to do mine. And I walked away with the victory and the belt still." - Silva, doesn't give a shit what you think of his performance. (UFC.com)
"It is a frustrating fight for a striker when a guy every time you go to hit him he falls to his back." - Liddell, who knows something about falling to his back after every strike recently. (UFC.com)
TALKING THE TALK
"As far as Georges St. Pierre, that problem will be dealt with a little bit later." - UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva brushing off a potential superfight with Georges St. Pierre (Cagewriter)
"You should ask Cote if he really does want to fight me again." - Silva, not impressed with Cote's performance.
"I believe that people being a lot more respectful may keep their teeth in their mouth." - Silva, when asked about people calling him out.
BEATDOWNED BULLY
"I just played into his game and I was a moron for it. I’m fighting with an ego like, 'I can tap Jacare out.'" - Jason "Mayhem" Miller, who left with $2,000 after fighting Ronaldo "Jacare" Souza at Dream 4. (Sherdog)
"Why would I do that? I’m stupid." - Miller
THE SNOWMAN HAS A LITTLE HEAT EXHAUSTION
"I'm the guy to beat Fedor." - Jeff Monson, on an upcoming game of checkers with top heavyweight Fedor Emelianenko. (Tatame)
"He's a great fighter, without doubt, he's one of the best in the world, but a fight is a fight and I think that I would have a good fight against him." - Monson, who probably ends up somewhere between getting Sylvia'd and Arlovski'd.
THE ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN CANNABIS
"I'd love to see how (a Cung Le fight) would turn out but I hear he's retired." - Nick Diaz, clowning on "budding movie star" Cung Le. Diaz challenged Roy Jones Jr. to a boxing match later in the week. (Cagewriter)
"Diaz was fine. The test went through a full battery which [also] checks for cleansing agents." - CSAC Assistant Executive Officer Bill Douglas. Diaz was seen in the background lighting up a joint. (MMA Weekly)
WHITE NOISE
"I'm me, I'm who I am." - UFC President Dana White, who proceeded to crush a can of spinach into his mouth. (The Score)
"I have enough things to do every day without dealing with people twisting what I said." - White, on the future of his video blogs. Also still doesn't understand why using the word "homo" and "bitch" in the context of his video blog is offensive.
"Back in 1987, if the media wrote something about you, you were screwed." - White, but only in 1987.
"We credential all the real media. Guys that are real media, they're credentialed." - White, who has never read an article penned by credentialed journalist Franklin McNeil. (Cagewriter)
"(There are) guys that rip us but at least they're professional and they do it the right way." - White referencing UFC watchdog Kevin Iole.
"Nog was a long time ago. Sylvia wasn’t even close to great and Arlovski has no chin." - White making his best attempts at discrediting Fedor Emelianenko's claim as the top fighter in the world. (The Carmichael Dave Show)
PARTING SHOTS
"There's a lot of 205-pounders we can all bang." - Former UFC heavyweight champ Kevin Randleman says something he immediately regrets. (MMA Mania)
"I keep getting this question: ‘You don’t like Fedor?’ No, I don’t have anything against the guy." - UFC heavyweight champ Brock Lesnar is just a little tired of hearing about the Russian. (MMA Mania)
"I thought I was actually good at it until I started rolling with him." - Former UFC heavyweight champ Frank Mir, on Demian Maia's effect on his jiu-jitsu game. (MMA Mania)
"Besides being very tactical, Anderson is way superior technically and I truly believe he has the tools to put Fedor in trouble." - Lyoto Machida. The urine's getting to his head. (Sherdog)
"Thanks, Nick. I appreciate it. It’s like watching money go out the window." - Former UFC light heavyweight champ Tito Ortiz thinks he lost a valuable re-match with Frank Shamrock following his loss to Nick Diaz. (MMA Mania)
"Nobody kicks a tree that is not able to give fruits." - Former Pride middleweight champ Wanderlei Silva responding to comments made by Anderson Silva. Anyone else want to translate? (Sherdog)
"One day when I stop fighting — a part of me will certainly die." - Mirko Filipovic, mirroring Chuck Liddell's poetic love for fighting. (MMA Cube)
