The pair have met on two occasions before in the Ultimate Fighting Championship firstly at UFC 47 in 2004 where Liddell lit up Ortiz with strikes on the way to a second-round knockout. The second encounter between the pair occurred in 2006 at UFC 66 while Liddell was the reigning light heavyweight champion. On that night Ortiz fared a little better, but it ended the same, with Liddell stringing together a combo of punches and dropping “The Huntington Beach Bad Boy” in the third round.
After a recent press conference in the lead-up to the fight, Liddell told Radio Rahim of Seconds Out that if Ortiz manages to beat him in November he will retire and stay retired.
“I’m fighting again,” Liddell said. “When I started getting back in shape, if I decided to fight I said I was gonna do two or three more after that. I got in shape, I’m ready to go. My body’s firing great. Everything’s going great and I’m ready to fight. This is just a great warm-up fight. (There’s) not a better tuneup fight than him. I mean he’s someone I’m better than at everything, so it’s a great tuneup fight for me. If he beats me, I have no business being back in the ring again. If he beats me, I’m done.”