Oscar De La Hoya scolds Dana White for telling fighters when to retire

Chuck Liddell and Tito Ortiz’s trilogy fight is just around the corner. The fight, which is being promoted by Oscar De La Hoya and Golden Boy Promotions, goes down this Saturday, November 24.

As this trilogy fight between the two MMA legends looms on the horizon, many members of the MMA community are quite excited. Others, however, would prefer to see Chuck Liddell and Tito Ortiz sticking to their retirement plans.

One such person is UFC President Dana White, who has been a fairly vocal critic of this rematch since it was announced. In his eyes, Liddell in particular should not be fighting anymore.

“I don’t think Chuck Liddell should be fighting, and that’s why I begged him to retire 10 years ago,” Dana White said at scrum ahead of UFC 229.

Oscar De La Hoya, a former fighter himself, has heard these comments from Dana White, and he firmly disagrees. He believes it should be up to the fighters, and nobody else, to decide when it’s time to hang up the gloves.

“Being a fighter myself, I would never, ever, like somebody to tell me that I should retire,” Oscar De La Hoya told MMAjunkie in an interview ahead of this weekend’s card. “You never tell a fighter to retire. That’s his business. It’s the fighter’s business.

“Imagine if I would have told George Foreman to retire. Imagine if I would have told Bernard Hopkins at 51 years old to retire. He would have never won the world title. Imagine somebody tells Floyd (Mayweather), you’re already 40 years old, you should retire. You don’t tell fighters to retire. It’s in their blood. It’s in their heart.

“Chuck Liddell has earned it. He’s looking in phenomenal shape; he’s training like there’s no tomorrow. He wants to build a team and have this trilogy with Tito, which I strongly feel is going to be one of the best trilogies that’s ever taken place in the MMA world. So let it be.”

Oscar De La Hoya added some parting words for Dana White and anybody else who’s been critical of this Chuck Liddell vs. Tito Ortiz trilogy fight.

“Let’s let them enjoy it.”

This article first appeared on BJPENN.COM on 11/20/2018.