|
| Article: |
Author |
| The Punisher |
David West |
He's no longer top of the food chain. Dana White hates him. His UFC deal is nearly up. What next for Tito Ortiz?
Whether Dana White likes it or not (and you can be sure that he doesn’t), no other fighter is as closely associated with the UFC as Tito Ortiz. In Ortiz’s 22 MMA matches, only two very early in his career have been outside the Ultimate Fighting Championship. He’s made 20 appearances in the octagon and held the Light Heavyweight Title from April 2000, when he beat Wanderlei Silva to claim the vacant crown, until being dethroned by Randy Couture in September 2003. And in the time he was champ, Ortiz disposed of Evan Tanner, Yuki Kondo, Elvis Sinosic, Vladimir Matyushenko and Ken Shamrock.
He was the king of the cage, with great takedowns and piledriver elbows on the floor. Young, arrogant and only too happy to talk trash about anyone and everyone, people either loved him or hated him – but everyone wanted to see him fight, whether they were hoping to see him pound someone into a bloody mess or praying for the day that he’d meet his match. Dana White should have been ecstatic to have such a marketable character as his champion, but there was one little problem: Tito Ortiz figured out how much he was worth.
BRINGING HOME THE BACON
BUT NOT THE BELT
The fight that everyone wanted to see in 2003 was Ortiz versus Chuck Liddell, and the popular opinion was that Ortiz was ducking his former training partner because he knew how hard Liddell could wallop. However, Ortiz was engaged in a lengthy contract dispute with White and the UFC over his paycheques and control over his own image – which may seem a little ironic in light of the fact that, in his debut at UFC 13, Ortiz fought for free in order to maintain his amateur status and protect his college wrestling scholarship.
White didn’t take kindly to his hottest attraction playing hardball over money and immediately started pushing Chuck Liddell further and further into the limelight, even after “The Iceman” was battered by Randy Couture in their first meeting. (And who was it that Dana sent over to Pride to represent the UFC after that fight? It sure as hell wasn’t the guy who won!)
During his exile from the UFC in 2005, after he beat superstar-in-waiting Vitor Belfort and while he was arguing over his contract, the UFC removed Ortiz’s profile from its website, in a WWE-esque move to make it seem as if he’d never been part of the promotion, never mind a champion and star attraction. After a brief stop-off in TNA, Ortiz eventually came to terms on a new UFC contract, in which White promised to fight Ortiz in a boxing match and Ortiz was appointed a team coach on season three of breakthrough reality TV show-come-UFC hype machine, The Ultimate Fighter.
The long-running feud between Tito and rival coach Ken Shamrock made TUF3 the most successful season of the show to date, while their October 2006 match was the UFC’s biggest fight ever, drawing almost six million viewers. So how did Dana White repay Ortiz for bringing home the bacon? He called him “a big sissy” for not accepting a rematch with Forrest Griffin at UFC 72. Then, at the press conference after Tito’s draw with Rashad Evans at UFC 73, Dana told reporters that: “Chuck Liddell, Randy Couture, Matt Hughes, Rich Franklin – these guys are much more respected fighters than Tito Ortiz. They’re better fighters. Tito isn’t that good any more.”
At the same time, White announced that Ortiz would be rematched, almost immediately, against Evans. That fight will conclude Ortiz’s current contract, but he never did get to tackle Dana in a boxing ring. After what Ortiz claimed was a disagreement over receiving a producer’s credit for the TV special, as well as a purse for fighting the UFC president (despite claiming all along that the proceeds would be given to charity), he no-showed the weigh-in for the fight, leaving White as the winner by default.
The whole affair blew up in Tito’s face, as what started off as a private grudge match to be held behind closed doors turned into a media circus after he bragged to the press about it, proceeding to talk trash about his boss and leaving taunting messages on his voicemail. Meanwhile White, a former amateur boxer, was getting back into serious fighting shape to the point that the Nevada State Athletic Commission thought he would wipe the floor with Tito – who, after all the braggartry and bravado, didn't turn up and was publicly perceived to have chickened out.
NEXT PLEASE
It’s hard to deny that Ortiz is showing signs of losing his edge. Sure, he made short work of Ken Shamrock in their second and third fights, but Shamrock is long past due for retirement. Tito was lucky to get the split decision over Forrest Griffin, let alone the two decisions he eked out before that over Vitor Belfort and Patrick Côté (who then dropped down to middleweight). So having performed far below the elite level in recent memory, and without a dominant performance against a quality fighter since 2002, who will Ortiz’s next (and possibly last) opponent in the Octagon be?
There are plenty of fresh faces in the division for him to fight, including red-hot newcomer Houston Alexander, and he could even rematch Griffin, but newly crowned champion Quinton Jackson has already said that he doesn’t want to fight Ortiz because they’re good friends, so “The Huntington Beach Bad Boy” will have to wait until Jackson has been knocked off the top spot before he gets another crack at the belt.
The announcement that Pride assassin Mauricio “Shogun” Rua is joining the UFC has sent shockwaves rippling through the division; Rua is a lethal knockout artist who already holds a win over Jackson and is likely to make a major impact on the UFC. However, he’s a virtual unknown in the US, having done most of his fighting in Brazil and Japan, bar the two Pride shows in Vegas. He’s just the kind of guy that Dana White would put in with Ortiz, both because it would give Rua a high profile introduction to the American fans and since he would likely flatten the cocky Californian, which would make Dana’s day.
There’s also the chance that Ortiz could leave the organisation that had been his bread and butter for ten years. If the Fertitta brothers ever get Pride back on its feet, White could dispatch Ortiz over there to spearhead the UFC’s assault on Japan. But then, when has White ever wanted to do Ortiz any favours in the past? If Tito was a hit in Japan, he could set himself up for life with the money he could earn from endorsements and licensing. And despite the UFC buying out the competition, including the WFA and WEC, there are still other promotions out there with deep enough pockets to afford such a marquee fighter.
TIME TO ABANDON SHIP?
The Californian Strikeforce/EliteXC tag team has made a splash by bringing Frank Shamrock back to active competition and, if it could tempt Ortiz into the cage with the guy who beat him in a legendary fight at UFC 22 (which many fans consider the greatest MMA fight of all time), it’d be a money spinner for sure. Ortiz's purse was $210,000 for the Rashad Evans fight, comparable to the $200,000 that Strikeforce/EXC paid Shamrock for battering Phil Baroni in June, so the money men can clearly afford him if he chooses to jump ship – and he’d have the added perk of fighting in his home state.
No one in Europe could afford to tempt Ortiz away from his current home, but Japan’s Hero’s promotion has money to burn and is looking to carve itself a niche in the North American market – not to mention filling the vacuum left by Pride. The Japanese group paid Brock Lesnar a sweet half-million for his one-minute MMA debut, so it could certainly afford to make Ortiz an offer he wouldn’t want to refuse. However, Hero’s doesn’t allow elbow strikes, which would rob Ortiz of his most potent weapon and could severely curtail his ground and pound style. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks and it’s impossible to imagine Ortiz re-inventing himself as either a stand-up striker or submission specialist at this late stage in his career. No ground and pound? No comment.
He could also follow up on the pro wrestling kick he started with TNA in 2005. He could follow the example of Ken Shamrock (not to mention Don Frye, Kevin Randleman, Mark Coleman and others) and try his hand at a stint in sports entertainment, but Tito’s desire to be master of his own destiny goes against the pro wrestling grain. After feuding with Dana White for so long, it’s not hard to imagine Ortiz struggling to play nicely with the likes of Vince McMahon – although we can only hope that Vince would try to pull a Montreal screwjob on Ortiz and then have to face more than just the smack in the mouth that Bret Hart gave him…
For the rest of this feature, check out issue 18 of FSM – available at WH Smith and all good retailers. (For US readers we are now carried at Borders, so check for local availability or click here to subscribe.)
Back to Articles Menu |
 |
|
