I don’t know how much Liddell/Jackson II proved one way or the other. Liddell got caught with a perfectly placed punch, which could have happened to any fighter against any opponent. Rampage had enough power behind his punch to win the fight with it. Liddell may have not given his opponent’s power and chin the respect it deserved, while overestimating his own power and ability to take Jackson’s best shot. That’s a huge mistake for any fighter against anyone, and particularly a guy who’s beat you in the past and gave you a lot of trouble with his power.

Despite his well publicized penchant for partying, Liddell has always trained his ass off. There’s been suggestions that he wasn’t taking Jackson seriously because he was seen out drinking and carousing the week before the fight, but that’s nothing new for him. Different guys approach pre-fight preparation in different ways and that’s how he does it. I still think that Liddell could potentially beat Rampage, but he’d have to approach the fight much more tactically than he usually does. Against most of his recent opponents turning the fight into a slugfest was the best thing he could do, but against a guy with equal (if not superior) power that’s not going to get it done.

In any case, I don’t see any reason that Liddell can’t be a factor in the light heavyweight/heavyweight championship mix in the future. Age eventually catches up to all fighters, but I don’t think that had anything to do with his loss to Rampage. If he’s still got the desire, I’m confident the ability is still there. Another option may be for him to move up to heavyweight and fight Randy Couture, which would be a huge fight financially and set him up for a new set of opponents should he win the title (Mirko, Arlovski, Nogueira, Gonzaga, Brandon Vera come immediately to mind)