Chuck Liddell Willing to Fight for Heavyweight Title

First things first: Chuck Liddell wants to remain at 205 lbs. so he can reclaim his light heavyweight title. However, the former champ says he's willing to move up to the heavyweight division to fight interim champ Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira if the UFC makes the request.

Liddell talked about the possible move while a recent guest on Fight Network Radio.

"That's a possibility if they want to do it," Liddell told host Mauro Ranallo when asked about the fight with Nogueira. "If they want to set it up. I'm willing to do it."

Nogueira, the former PRIDE heavyweight champion, made his UFC debut in 2007. After a victory over Heath Herring, he took on Tim Sylvia at UFC 81 and won the organization's interim heavyweight title with a third-round submission.

UFC hall-of-famer Randy Couture is the organization's current heavyweight champ, but he resigned from the organization in October after a dispute with key UFC executives. The UFC maintains that Couture, in fact, retired from the sport, and UFC president Dana White said he won't strip him of the title until Couture fulfills the terms of his contract (fighting twice more in the UFC). Couture and his lawyers maintain that he's free to fight for other organizations when his contract expires in October. The matter will likely be determined by the courts.

In the meantime, the organization is moving forward with Nogueira -- for all intents and purposes -- as the UFC's current heavyweight champion. Fabricio Werdum was expected to get the next title shot, but rumors are circulating that he'll be fighting Brandon Vera at UFC 85 in June.

The UFC has yet to schedule Nogueira for his first title defense.

Liddell, meanwhile, will fight Rashad Evans in UFC 85's main event. With a victory, he hopes he'll get a third shot at Quinton Jackson, who took his belt this past May at UFC 71, if he gets by Forrest Griffin in July (at UFC 86).

"I would definitely like it to happen before the end of the year," Liddell said. However, he's not ruling out a fight with Nogueira.

"Honestly I would like to get my title back at light heavyweight and then talk about moving up," he said. "But if that came up, (that) too is a possibility."

As it stands, there may be no better time than now to move up since the UFC's heavyweight division is in a bit of disarray. A year ago, the division never looked so stacked. However, Couture recently resigned, Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipovic suffered back-to-back losses and left the UFC, former champ Tim Sylvia lost to Nogueira in February, one-time contender Gabriel Gonzaga has lost two fights in a row, fringe contender Cheick Kongo was recently stopped by Heath Herring, and former title-holder Andrei Arlovski may be on his way out of the organization now that he's a free agent.

There is, however, a strange rumor that Liddell would even like to fight Fedor Emelianenko. Liddell has stated that he matches up against the former Pride Phenom, saying Fedor doesn't trade well and he'll be able to stuff Fedor's takedowns. That fight would be much better than Fedor and Couture.