Bodog Beat

Chuck Liddell won't get a UFC title shot for quite a while. (AP Images)

Losing stinks, and there's no sport where it stinks more than in mixed martial arts. A loss in baseball, hockey or football is easy to digest. The team shares the burden, secretly assigning blame and pointing fingers as they file back onto the bus for the short drive to the next town, where a fresh victory awaits to balance the scales and wash away the bitter memory of defeat.

But in MMA, things aren't so easy. Losing isn't just about abstract numbers on a scoreboard. Noses are broken. Ligaments are snapped. Your liver gets bruised just as badly as your ego, and you only have yourself to blame. Coaches and training partners make for poor scapegoats. Worst of all, you might have to wait months for your next fight. Sometimes it's because you're in a body cast or waiting for a suitable nose donor, but other times, you're just waiting for the phone to ring. When you're only as good as your last fight, every day that passes feels like dollars out the door.

Thankfully, for top-tier fighters, a title shot is never more than a few wins away – even coming off a crushing loss. After Tim Sylvia suffered a humiliating defeat to Randy Couture in March 2007, many fans thought that would be the last they'd see of him. But now, after a unanimous decision over Brandon "The Truth" Vera, Sylvia is getting a shot at the interim heavyweight title on Feb. 2 in Las Vegas, Nev. against the quadruple-named Antonio "Rodrigo" Minotauro Nogueira. The winner will allegedly face Couture for the heavyweight title.

Sylvia has come back twice before: once, after getting his arm broken by Frank Mir and again, after losing to Andrei Arlovski. Like an enormous cockroach infestation, Sylvia refuses to disappear. Even though he isn't the most popular fighter to ever set foot in the octagon, you have to admire his ability to rebound.

Now, with a win over Wanderlei Silva, Chuck Liddell is on a comeback trail of his own … Read more at Bodog Nation.

Watch mixed martial arts every week with Bodog Fight: The Vault or check your local listings for Bodog Fight on The Fight Network and on The Score. Remember, you can make UFC bets in the Bodog Sportsbook.