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Tuesday, Aug 24, 2004

White Cries Foul:



White Cries Foul:
Gives "Thumbs" Down To Liddell’s Performance
By Loretta Hunt

Vernon "Tiger" White is mad– and he wants the world to know it. Coming away with the loss from Saturday night’s rumble with Chuck "the Iceman" Liddell at UFC 49, White is claiming his opponent poked his eye at the conclusion of the bout. Liddell was awarded the victory after knocking out White 4:05 in, but the Lion’s Den fighter is demanding a rematch.



"I don’t know if it was a thumb," White said of his injury after contacting FCF yesterday. "I don’t know what it was, but I have a CAT scan or MRI with broken bones in the back of my eye socket. There’s no possible way that just a knuckle could go in there and break bones in the back my eye." White says he is awaiting word from his physician if he will need surgery to correct the problem. "If it was just a knockout, I’d be able to see right now. I’m still seeing double now. If I turn my head to far to the left or the right it hurts. I can’t look down because the pressure underneath my eye is pushing the eyeball up. My eye is jacked right now."

"I just want people to know that I was about to beat Chuck and he felt and knew it, and he did what he had to do to keep his title shot," he comments. "I saw it in his face. Everybody saw it in his face. I was gonna beat him."

Octagon protocol allows a fighter to communicate with the referee when he feels a foul has been committed against him, but White says he was unable to do so at the time. "I was in so much pain that I couldn’t say anything. I never got the chance."

Along with the eye damage, White says he also broke his thumb in the bout, when he hit Liddell incorrectly with his left hand, and Liddell further aggravated the fracture when White blocked a punch. "A lot of people, they thought I wasn’t the real thing. For all those people out there who thought I was a punk, I broke my thumb in that fight and I kept fighting."

White says he has no plans to pursue a formal protest with the Nevada State Athletic Commission regarding the matter, but instead, is taking his cause "to the streets" of the Internet highway and the MMA public at large. "Everybody knows I was going to beat him and I want to fight him again. This time if he puts his thumb in my eye, I want the money that I would be winning to come out of his purse or I want his purse to come to me. How can he thumb Tito [Ortiz] and stick a finger in my eye and not get in trouble for it? Whether it was an accident or it was not an accident, I’m just upset because it could have been a much better fight."

FCF was unable to reach Liddell for comment on the matter.

posted by Full Contact Fighter @ 8:00 pm
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