Golden Boy Promotions Applies for November MMA Event in California
Golden Boy Promotions has submitted an application with the California State Athletic Commission to hold its first-ever mixed martial arts event.
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Both Liddell and Ortiz to fight for a third time at light heavyweight under the Golden Boy Promotions banner.
“We’re looking to finalize everything very soon,” De La Hoya
told Fight
Hub TV on Tuesday. “We’re looking at the weekend of Nov. 25,
which is the whole Thanksgiving weekend. We’re gonna do it big,
just like we do it.
“I’m really looking forward to getting into the MMA world and making sure that these fighters are being compensated well. Because look, we risk our lives in the ring. Fighters should be compensated extremely well.”
It has been nearly 12 years since Liddell and Ortiz last fought, when “The Iceman” stopped his rival via third-round technical knockout at UFC 66 on Dec. 30, 2006. They first squared off at UFC 47, with Liddell scoring a second-round knockout over “The Huntington Beach Bad Boy” on April 2, 2004.
Liddell, 48, retired from MMA in 2010 after losing five of his last six UFC appearances. He accepted an executive position with the Las Vegas-based promotion but was let go after WME-IMG bought the UFC in 2016.
Ortiz, meanwhile, has competed more recently. After retiring from the UFC in 2012, he made a comeback with Bellator MMA and won three of four bouts from 2014 to 2017. The 43-year-old last appeared at Bellator 170, where he tapped out Chael Sonnen with a rear-naked choke 2:03 into the opening stanza.
“I’m gonna start Golden Boy MMA for a reason and it’s gonna start with Chuck Liddell and Tito Ortiz, to pay them correctly and pay them what they deserve,” De La Hoya said.
De La Hoya added that there is currently not a co-main event in place for the first Golden Boy MMA card.
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