The Huntington Beach Bad Boy is undeniably one of the greats when it comes to mixed martial arts, yet the UFC seems to sweep Tito Ortiz under the rug whenever possible. Despite a rocky last few years, Tito Ortiz beat some of the world’s toughest LHW fighters in the early 2000s, and has fought at over 25 events from UFC 13 in 1997 all the way until UFC 148 in 2012.
“The UFC are trying to erase me from history, period. I really don’t care, personally I don’t care.”
(The best rants always start with “I don’t care…”)
“What I really care [about], what really hurts my feelings is my kids and the fans. The fans who paid millions… They’re taking away from them. From my kids, from my own children that I beared to this world. They want to look at their father as being one of the greatest athletes in mixed martial arts to ever compete, they can’t look up that anymore. Google it? Yeah. If they want to look in the history books of what UFC was, so UFC is just tarnishing themselves by doing this. Life’s too short to hate, why take someone’s history?” continued Tito in a recent video interview.
“Lorenzo’s sitting at my house saying “What do we need to do to make this happen? You’re such a great fighter.” Dana’s saying “Man, you’re one of the best in the world. You’re the next Michael Jordan.” I remember these words of them saying, you know?I thought me and lorenzo are really cool, he was already good to me.
Me and Dana had our back and forth, but to take me out of history? Is that a way for them to mess with me for my PPV fight? I mean, that’s not going to mess with me. It’s about my fans who pay the millions of dollars. It’s about my kids who grow up and turn 18 or 19 and decide they want to be fighters and they look back and go “Yeah, my dad was the best in MMA but not UFC because he’s not in the history books at all? I mean you can’t erase history. You look at Guinness book of world records when I held the title for so long that was in there. Maybe it comes down to bad press is good press and its still press either way. I wont live in a negative light ever. It bothers me a little bit but they’re tlakign about it so it doesn’t matter.”
There probably aren’t any UFC reunions or commentating jobs coming up for Tito, so what does the future have in store for the 39 year old mma legend?
“I’m making a run for this world title and its going to come down to me and rampage I believe, for the world title.”
He might not have a way with words, but Tito does have some good points. I wonder if the UFC’s handling of the whole Tito situation is a reaction to Bellator who are trying to use Tito’s UFC legacy as a way to build their own promotion, there’s no doubt they would love to be able to put on Rampage vs Ortiz a few fights down the road. By downplaying guys that make the switch to Bellator, the UFC is acting as the boot that’s holding Bellator’s head in the puddle.But afterall, this is a business and here’s what Tito had to say about that…
“It’s all about money, everything is about money. at the end of the day its about people making themselves rich.”
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