Anybody else intrigued by the prospect of Chuck “The Iceman” Liddell taking on Rashad Evans? It’s true that most hardcore MMA fans would have rather seen a fight between Anderson "The Spider" Silva and Liddell go through; but this match up between a TUF Champion in Evans and a former UFC Light Heavyweight Champion in Liddell, just keeps growing on you, doesn’t it?

UFC 88 will come to us all from Atlanta, Georgia in September of 2008 where the headliner may very well be Chuck Liddell vs. Rashad Evans in a war that could decide who gets the next title shot against either Quinton “Rampage” Jackson or Forrest Griffin.

If you’re feeling as if a fight between Liddell and Evans sounds rather strange, that’s probably because your spider sense is reminding you that it almost happened at UFC 85 until an injury forced Liddell out.

The bottom line is that this would represent the biggest fight in Rashad Evans’ short MMA life span by far. Along with that statement, his undefeated 11-0-1 record would truly be put to the test against one of the greatest mixed martial arts fighters in MMA history.

But it’s not just Evans that has a lot on the line here. This is also a do or die fight for Chuck Liddell. If he isn’t somehow able to pull off a victory against Evans then his hope to win back the UFC Light Heavyweight Championship will likely fall by the wayside in a big way.

So let’s get right down to it. Who would win, the legend with the Kempo tattoo that fights out of The Pit or the up and comer that came out of almost nowhere to win TUF 2?

Chuck Liddell vs. Rashad Evans at UFC 88 in Atlanta

Chuck Liddell possesses an overall MMA record of 21-5 with 13 (T)KO’s and one submission victory to his credit. The bottom line is that he’s the hardest puncher that the MMA light heavyweight division has ever seen. In addition, Liddell possesses the best takedown defense ever in his weight class.

And anytime you can say that a guy is the best of all time in his weight class at two separate aspects of fighting, you know that you don’t want to mess with him.

Just ask Renato Sobral, Randy Couture, and Tito Ortiz, all of whom have been knocked out twice by Liddell. Not to mention the fact that MMA superstars like Jeremy Horn, Alistair Overeem, and Kevin Randleman have all put to sleep by The Iceman as well.

Interestingly, in Liddell’s last bout – a unanimous decision victory over longtime nemesis Wanderlei Silva – Liddell also displayed some pretty nice takedowns, something that he has never really chosen to show in the past. You see, Chuck Liddell has never been about taking people down. Rather, he’s been about stopping people from taking him down and knocking them out.

Along with this, the way to beat Chuck Liddell — unless your name is Quinton “Rampage” Jackson — has always seemed to lie with an opponent’s ability to take him down and pound him out.

But if Randy Couture couldn’t do that the last two times they met. . .

Rashad Evans is 11-0-1 with three (T)KO’s and two submission victories to his credit. In sum, he’s a former Michigan State Division I-A college wrestler with excellent takedowns, takedown defense, and ground control skills. Further, Evans has fast hands, good power on his feet, and is also difficult to stop.

Perhaps the only thing missing from Evans’s skill set are elite finishing skills. His jiu jitsu and/ or submission skills are improving as he spends more time in Greg Jackson’s camp, but are still not a strength. Further, he has good power—as he showed against Sean Salmon—but is not necessarily consistently stellar in that regard.

By the way, a lack of finishing skills has never been the knock on Chuck Liddell.

Prediction for Chuck Liddell vs. Rashad Evans at UFC 88 :Rashad Evans has proven that he can fight with guys that hit hard, as evidenced by the fact that he won the TUF 2 Championship in the heavyweight division and is fighting as a light heavyweight now. Anyone that saw the shots he took against a much bigger Brad Imes in the TUF 2 Championship knows this. Further, he possesses outstanding wrestling skills, always comes to fight in shape, and has demonstrated, at times, the ability to hurt people on his feet. Thus, he seems to have the skill set to give any MMA fighter trouble, and Chuck Liddell is no different.

However, Evans is not the better technical striker in this match up. Further, it will be very hard for him to knock Liddell out as he just hasn’t proven to have consistent finishing power on his feet yet during his career. His hands may be faster, but he lacks the kind of low kicks that his friend and training partner, Keith Jardine, utilized to his advantage against Liddell during a decision victory.

Said another way, as good as Evans is, he probably needs to take this fight to the ground.

Evans proved to be in better shape than Tito Ortiz when he took him on as evidenced by how much fresher he was at the end of that fight. Still, Ortiz proved to be the better wrestler when the two were fresh in the beginning of the fight.

Though the whole comparison thing is always fraught with error, Evans had difficulty with Ortiz’s wrestling skills early in that fight, and Liddell has never demonstrated any problem stuffing The Huntington Beach Bad Boy’s takedowns.

Yes, this fight could go either way. But guess is that Chuck Liddell will be able to stuff Evans’s takedown attempts and beat him on his feet. In the end, expect Liddell to connect with one of those patented right hands of his at some point. Though Evans is very tough, he may find that when The Iceman gets you in trouble there is no recovering.

Chuck Liddell via KO in round two.

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