Issue 087

April 2012

Light heavyweight star Tito Ortiz is focusing on the build-up to what will be his last fight and his plans for the future after he steps out of the Octagon for the final time

His has been one of the most illustrious careers in fight sports. Just like Jon Jones today, Tito Ortiz was also once the poster boy of the UFC. He had it all, was a one-man wrecking machine and his life literally played out inside of the Octagon. Now, aged 37 and after 15 years of combat (three of those as 205lb champ), the curtain is drawing to a close. Yet Tito has just one last wish… typically, to go out with a bang.

Many have argued Ortiz should have been released by the Ultimate Fighting Championship long ago. Heading into his July 2011 fight with rising star Ryan Bader after all, he’d not had his hand raised in almost five years. Yet there wasn’t a dry eye in the house or a butt left on a sofa worldwide when he broke into his infamous gravedigger routine after sinking in his first submission victory in 11 years at UFC 132.

The Bader victory, and his subsequent defeat to Rashad Evans – when he jumped back in at just four weeks’ notice, when nobody else would, to save the UFC 133 card – typifies Ortiz’s career. Through all the highs and the lows, he’s remained a headline act and a character to boot. Surely he deserves the chance to sign off on his terms.

“Win, lose or draw, this next fight will be my last. But I want to go out in style,” says the former ‘Huntington Beach Bad Boy’ turned ‘People’s Champion.’ “And I’ve been thinking about who I’d like to fight a lot. Since [Chuck] Liddell’s retired that fight’s out of the question. Forrest [Griffin] is still competing so I think a trilogy bout between me and him would be great. I’m coming off a loss, he’s coming off a loss, so let’s see who can get the best out of three.

“In a perfect world I’d like that fight to happen in Las Vegas on 4th July weekend, but of course, Dana [White] and Lorenzo [Fertitta] make the final decisions so I can’t say who I’m going to fight or when. I just wanna put an idea in people’s minds and hope that it happens.”

Tito is also planning on returning to his old home of Big Bear, California, to prepare for his last outing. It’s another ‘old friend’ that he’d like to sign off alongside. He added: “In my mind right now this is my last fight and so I’m going to go up to Big Bear, to train, get my hand raised and go out on top. I’ve got to go back to Big Bear. It’s been my livelihood throughout my whole career. It makes me more focused. I’m in great shape. If you’re not in great shape then you’re not as confident. It’s kind of hard to say, but being away from my family and everything means that all my energy is put strictly into training.

“That’s all I do: eat, sleep and train, that’s it. When I’m home my family comes first and my training and businesses are tied second because they both make me money. Home is where I have the fun times. I can go out to dinner, go to the movies or chill at the house. At Big Bear I can’t go wherever I want. After my last fight, I owe it to myself, I owe it to my fans and I owe it to my career.”

And what a career. Tito’s run-ins with Griffin, Liddell, Ken Shamrock and even Dana White are stuff of UFC legend. While his illustrious 27-fight pro record reads like a who’s who of MMA’s Hall of Fame. Undoubtedly one of the most controversial figures in the sport earlier in his career, being spotted regularly on the Las Vegas strip with boxing bad boy Mike Tyson, Ortiz was one of the sport’s first real polarizing champions, and one of the first to bring trash talk and big fight salesmanship to the Octagon.

“Trash talk came natural to me,” he says with a smile. “I think you’ve got to try and manipulate the guy you’re competing against. You want to beat him before the fight even starts, and the way you do that is trash talk. If you can break someone before the match even starts then he knows you’ve already won. I’ve done that since school and I learned the kind of brain patterns that people have. Does it work? Of course it works. 

“And I’ve never lied. I’ve always told the truth, every single time. That’s why I think people really knew I meant it when I said it. It’s just something I have in me. The guys I hung out with when I was younger, we’d all rag on each other and you wanted to be the dominant guy in the conversation so you had to be crafty with your words. I was that type of person.”

One of Tito’s most famous rivalries was with Ken Shamrock and Ortiz admits that, unlike pretty much every other public spat in his career, their animosity towards one another was completely genuine. He says: “The thing with Shamrock was as real as it gets. The things with Liddell and Dana were totally different. They were made out to be the same but they really weren’t. 

“I didn’t like [Shamrock] from the first day I started fighting in the UFC. He treated his fans like s**t and he never had my respect at all. I was standing at the back of the line thinking, ‘I can’t wait to beat that guy down someday.’ Once I got better Dana granted me the opportunity and I wanted to crush him. I did not like the guy. I don’t usually hate people, but I hated him.

“I thought our bad blood was over after I crushed him in three rounds, then he comes back making all these excuses and I thought, ‘Oh great, here we go again.’ Dana asked me if I wanted to fight him again and I said ‘Of course.’ We did The Ultimate Fighter and I said to him, ‘You respect my space and I’ll respect your space. We’ll be great coaches and may the best coach win. After that, we’ll fight.’ It was fine for a couple of weeks and then he started poking me on national TV. I almost punched him in his face; he got lucky.

“When we fought the second time I stopped him in one minute and 36 seconds. He said he wasn’t out and I wish the referee hadn’t pulled me off him because I would have kept pounding him. There was hatred there. It wasn’t a case of money or that we didn’t used to be friends at one time. We just did not like each other.”

But the fall-out with Liddell was manufactured to sell tickets, at least, at first. “That was all manufactured,” Tito reveals. “That was him and Dana against me, because I tried to stand my ground. I’ve said it before, I wanted to make sure that we made serious money. I wanted to sell it but [Liddell] sold out. I had no choice then because my back was against the wall. Dana said, ‘You’ve got to fight him or you’re a pussy.’ So I said, ‘Fine, let’s do it.’ I didn’t really want to do it, I thought Liddell was my friend but he was a sell out. It is what it is. 

“It’s just been non-stop. Still to this day it’s non-stop and he’s retired. It’s still attack Tito time. I’ve seen Liddell a bunch of times [since] and I always ask, ‘What’s up?’ to him. Maybe it’s like brainwashed hatred, like if someone tells you that you hate Tito enough times you start believing it. I’ve never done anything bad to Liddell, man, I’ve always liked the guy. The guy came to stay at my house and we trained together, we’d go to Big Bear and train together. And then he had someone else in his head telling him how much of an a**hole I was. But it’s all business. The second time we fought was [because of] me. I was on a five-fight win streak and I was ready to fight, I came in and I fought. I wasn’t afraid of him. 

“You could see how fabricated things were when people started saying, ‘Tito Ortiz is afraid to fight.’ C’mon man, that’s just stupid. I take wins, losses, draws. I go out and I fight. I put my heart on my sleeve and wear it proudly. That’s what a fighter does.

“I can’t say I blame [Liddell]. He showed his loyalty to the UFC and to me it was all about taking care of my family because you never know what could happen. You could fall and break your neck or get slammed on your back and need surgery. Most people don’t know that but I do. I’ve gone through it. Now I’m 37 years old and I feel those bumps and bruises. Was it worth a million bucks? Hell no! Don’t get me wrong, I live very nicely now, but I worked hard for my money and I’ve been smart with it.

“I see all these boxers making 20 or 30 million a fight. Those are ridiculous numbers and that’s because they’re putting their lives on the line. It’s not just a nine-to-five job. I’m putting my heart and soul into a business where I’m going to entertain a lot of people and they’re going to pay a lot of money to make it happen. I might have made some mistakes by not showing my complete loyalty, it’s just one of those things. My whole life, even as a kid, I could never trust anybody. I couldn’t trust my father or my mother. I had to depend on myself. My whole life I’ve been surviving on my own. No matter how much loyalty is shown I can never trust a person because you never know. I’ve always been on defensive mode. Like I said, I’ve made a few mistakes against Dana and so on, but I was just defending myself.”

Not surprisingly, looking at the similarities in the rise to fame in the 205lb class, Tito admits to being a huge Jon Jones fan. “Jon Jones is my favorite fighter. He’s amazing to watch and he’s a great dude. I also like to watch Chael [Sonnen] too. He’s a great fighter and he talks really well. His wrestling is really good and he knows how to sell a fight. I think he has a real chance of beating [Anderson] Silva, for sure.”

However, it’s two completely different champions who Tito believes fight more his style, with one in particular even picking up the classic canvas point before a fight. “Georges St Pierre, he wrestles and ground ‘n’ pounds in exactly the same way I do and it’s cool to see. 

“And when I see [Junior] Dos Santos point his finger to the mat like I do it cracks me up, I think it’s cool. I’ve given blood, sweat, tears and my body for this company. That’s one of the biggest reasons why I decided to step back, to give my body a little rest.”

So how does the Tito of today, the settled and seemingly content 37-year-old gym and clothing brand owner, differ from the guy who used to rule the UFC? “I’m more mature now. I want to give my family everything that I never had growing up. I’m trying and it feels good to do. Hard work and dedication are important in this life, to be a positive person and an inspiration in people’s lives. Show people what hard work and dedication can accomplish as long as you keep your mind on the target.”