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“If you go by the rules, you end up being an accountant.”
Written by Jim Murphy | Wednesday, August 06 2008
Affliction's signing of "The Huntington Beach Bad Boy" further bolsters their already impressive stable of fighters.
Tito Ortiz will sign with Affliction in a deal that’ll be formally announced in a matter of days, if not sooner. At this point all that remains to be finalized are minor details of a deal that will likely make Ortiz the highest paid fighter in MMA history. Sources close to the organization indicate that much of the deal will consist of “backend” type compensation including a higher than average cut of t-shirt, ticket and PPV sales. The UFC has the right to match any offer but are extremely unlikely to do so. As UFC President Dana White quipped at the time of Ortiz’s release, he wouldn’t match such an offer if he was “getting $30 a fight”.
It’s easy to dismiss Ortiz’s signing as a case of a company paying higher than market value for an over the hill fighter, but that assessment is incorrect. It’s important to remember that Tito was essentially buried by UFC President Dana White during the last few years of his tenure with the promotion. Ortiz might no longer be a championship level competitor, but in a new promotion with renewed enthusiasm that might even be a premature judgment. In any case, he’s still a handful in the ring or cage. With the exception of an early setback to Guy Metzger, his career losses have come to a who’s who of the sport—Chuck Liddell (twice), Randy Couture, Frank Shamrock, and Lyoto Machida. The one-sided decision loss to Machida—who’s unorthodox style is frequently compared to boxer Pernell Whittaker for its ability to make everyone look bad—was a result of a horrible matchup, no doubt by Dana White’s design in an effort to undermine Tito’s market value.
And the names that Ortiz has beaten are equally impressive: longtime PRIDE light heavyweight champion Wanderlei Silva, current UFC light heavyweight champion Forrest Griffin, Patrick Cote (who’s the next challenger to UFC middleweight king Anderson Silva), Vitor Belfort (who’s fighting Matt Lindland for the WAMMA lightweight title on the 2nd Affliction card), former King of Pancrase Yuki Kondo, and Ken Shamrock (three times). While the ultimate determination will be made in the ring, it could very well be a case that Ortiz isn’t on the downside of his career but simply wasn’t put in a position to succeed by his former employer.
More importantly for Affliction, however, is the fact that Ortiz is one of the most polarizing figures in the history of the sport. There’s no middle ground with Tito—fans either love him and his “Huntington Beach Bad Boy” persona or they hate him and want to see him get his face smashed in. In other words, he’s a promotional gold mine evidenced by the fact that he was involved in both the highest rated MMA program on broadcast TV (Ortiz vs. Shamrock 3 in 2006) as well as the highest buy rate for a MMA PPV event in history (UFC 66 vs. Chuck Liddell). In a sport full of likeable ‘regular guys’ who just so happen to be excellent fighters, Ortiz is a legitimate rock star.
Not only is Ortiz a box office and PPV buy catalyst, he’ll be invaluable for attracting sponsors and mainstream media interest. Along with his porno superstar girlfriend, Jenna Jamison, he’s a publicity magnet. And his signing is also good for Affliction’s core business—it doesn’t take a genius to envision the inevitable Tito Ortiz signature t-shirts flying off of store shelves at $55 a pop, as well as pumping up sales of his opponent’s t-shirts bought by the aforementioned anti-Tito forces looking to see him get his face beat in.
Ortiz is scheduled to make his debut at the 2nd Affliction card, “Day of Reckoning” which will be held in Las Vegas on October 11th. His opponent will be another former UFC “bad boy”, Renato “Babalu” Sobral, in what should be an interesting contrast of styles with Tito’s power game up against the world class Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu skills of Sobral. “Babalu” is already very popular among the Affliction fan base so this should be a very highly anticipated matchup and one that’ll move a lot of t-shirts for the company promoting the event.
There are plenty of media outlets both online and off that trip over themselves to criticize everything that Affliction does. Whether they’re trying to curry favor with Dana White and the UFC, trying to maintain their UFC media credential access, or whether they’re just “naysayers” its difficult to find an accurate perspective on just how quickly Affliction is changing the MMA promotional game. They’ll spin this as a case of Affliction overpaying for a fighter at the tale end of his career. Don’t be fooled by this—the Tito Ortiz signing could be a huge turning point in the sport. Consider how visible Tito has been while working for a promoter he didn’t like personally and felt disrespected by professionally—he’ll be in promotional overdrive for his new employers. The fact that he can draw motivation to “stick it to” Dana White and the UFC just heightens the value of Tito’s signing. Tito will be very well compensated in this deal, but Affliction’s return on the investment could be monumental.
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