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14/03/10 - UFC president refutes Liddell-Franklin reports
Chuck Liddell is not fighting Rich Franklin instead of Tito Ortiz, says UFC president Dana White. Numerous sites - including ourselves -reported yesterday that former middleweight champion Franklin was being brought in to replace Ortiz in a fight against Chuck Liddell to end the TUF 11 season.
Fighters Only heard of the supposed switch from a source that has previously been very reliable, while Sherdog also reported Liddell-Franklin and said that verbal agreements were in place with contracts to be issues shortly.
But White blew the reports out of the water shortly after they surfaced with a post on his Twitter account saying “Not true! We are doing Couture vs Franklin not Chuck”. Responding to some reports that Ortiz had left TUF 11 before filming finished he added, “Nothing happened to Tito. Tito and I are cool.”
Ortiz himself twittered “This is all news to me!!! Look at Dana Whites twitter if you don't believe me. The show will tell the tale. Have to watch it on the 31st.”
The rumours that Ortiz does not make it to the end of season 11 as a coach have been circulating for some weeks now, and were compounded by a series of cryptic messages on his Twitter account. Despite yesterday’s reports proving to be wrong, the rumour-mill has at least created headlines for TUF 11 before it has even started airing and as Ortiz put it “the show will tell the tale” when Spike TV begin airing it on March 31st.
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