 While Dana White has been telling everyone within arm's distance that Chuck Liddell is done and retired, White isn't so quick to try and push Wanderlei Silva and Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira. In a great interview he did for Inside Fighting a couple of weeks ago, White said that he would pull the trigger on them but that he doesn't have the kind of relationship with them that he has with Chuck Liddell. "I will pull the trigger on them too," White said. "The problem with guys like that is that I don’t have the relationship that I have with a guy like Liddell. Me and Liddell are close so when I say 'dude, you are done, here’s what we are going to do, blah, blah, blah,' but I don’t have that relationship with them. So I can’t guarantee you that these guys are going to f_cking stop. I want them to stop and I’ll try to figure it out and get them to stop because one of the things I always say is that I’ve built this business using the blueprint of boxing, what not to do. We know that you shouldn’t be fighting past your prime, you know?"
When asked if he could get them to stop fighting by cutting them, White stated "I don’t want to cut them and that wouldn’t stop them from fighting. Someone else will dig up the money and pay them. Its better off that I keep them close to me and I can, you know, Wanderlei and I do have a good relationship but its not like me and Chuck. Its not where I feel like I can tell this guy something and he’s going to really listen to me, you know? But if I can work something else out so that this guy can make a living, and that’s what we are trying to do. That’s what we are trying to do with these merchandise agreements. We sat back and thought, once these guys live inside the UFC brand we can set up some merchandising where these guys can collect royalty checks for the rest o their lives? Let me give you an example. Rowdy Roddy Piper. When is the last time you saw him wrestle? Long time ago, right? Rowdy Roddy Piper is sitting on a couch somewhere collecting checks because you can still get the Rowdy Roddy Piper doll and other things that they sell through the WWE. Now when is the last time you saw the Leon Spinks f_cking doll? Yeah, you didn’t f_cking see it and you are never going to see it and he’s not getting any checks."
As a quick side note, Roddy Piper still continues to wrestle from time to time and even wrestled at WrestleMania 25 in March.
White probably shouldn't receive any criticism for not forcing other fighters into retirement since that's not his job. To his credit, White trying to force his top draw in Chuck Liddell into retirement is one of the few times - if ever - that a promoter has tried to get their top draw to retire when they can still draw. For the full interview at Inside Fighting, click here.
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