Written by Jim Murphy
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Monday, February 08 2010
Tito Ortiz is no longer the fighter--or the PPV draw--that he was in his prime. So why is the UFC tolerating his ridiculous behavior?
Here’s the deal with Tito Ortiz: people either love him or hate him. That’s been his deal ever since he made his UFC debut back in 1997. Some people buy into his ‘Huntington Beach Bad Boy’ persona and the antics that accompany them. Other people think he’s basically a douchebag and want to see him get his ass kicked. Assuming that the individual in question can back it up in the ring/cage—and in his prime, Tito certainly could—that’s a promotional license to print money.
During the era in which the UFC was still trying to pull itself out of the primordial ooze and establish itself as a promotional powerhouse and MMA as a legit sport, Tito Ortiz was one of the guys on the roster who could move tickets and PPVs. His UFC 66 bout with Chuck Liddell was the promotion’s first PPV to do more than 1 million buys. No matter your take on Ortiz personally, you had to admit that he made people want to watch fights.
I wanted to preface this article with these observations on Tito Ortiz’s rightful importance to the growth of the UFC—financially and otherwise—to establish the fact that I get his ‘deal’. I’m not one of these holier than thou moralists that doesn’t understand the importance of fighting promotional element. I’m well aware that a lot of fighters are putting on an ‘act’ during prefight trash talking in the interest of their financial bottom line.
Having said that, I seriously wonder why Ortiz is still in the UFC. In theory, they brought him back to Zuffa-land after a rancorous feud with Dana White so that their competitors wouldn’t be able to use him to their advantage. That sounds good in theory, but the sport has changed dramatically since Tito/Chuck sold a million plus PPVs at UFC 66 in December 2006. Based on the evidence since then, there’s nothing to suggest that Tito Ortiz on the card does anything for its box office appeal. None of his three UFC appearances since have sold more than 475,000 PPVs. His ‘comeback’ fight against Forrest Griffin at UFC 106 did 375,000 buys.
Ortiz didn’t embarrass himself with his performance in the fight, but the reality is that he’s winless in his last four fights (three losses and a draw) and hasn’t had a ‘quality’ win since a split decision victory over Vitor Belfort in 2005. His wins since then have been the disputed decision win over Forrest Griffin and two victories over a shot Ken Shamrock. Ortiz hasn’t had a stoppage win over an opponent not named ‘Shamrock’ since beating Elvis Sinosic in 2001.
Age sneaks up quickly on a fighter, and at some point their skills start to diminish. One thing I’ve always respected about Dana White is that he keeps aging fighters that have been important to the UFC on the Zuffa payroll. Granted, there’s some degree of interest in protecting the UFC brand in doing so but whatever the motivation they haven’t sent clearly past their prime fighters like Chuck Liddell, Mark Coleman and Matt Hughes packing off to Strikeforce or Japan to get their brains beat in by younger opponents. In that context, I have no issue with the UFC’s initial decision to bring Ortiz back to the fold. He’s done a lot for the promotion, and no one wants to see him getting beat senseless by Gegard Mousasi on a Strikeforce card.
Unfortunately, Tito seems to think that he’s still ‘the show’. The latest bit of jackass behavior may have been his most egregious. After the UFC 109 main event between Randy Couture and Mark Coleman, Joe Rogan was interviewing the defeated Coleman in the cage. Ortiz and his porno star girlfriend Jenna Jameson decided that this was a great time to heckle the UFC Hall of Famer. Tito shouted expletives at Coleman as both he and Jameson gave him the ‘middle finger salute’. Coleman went to go after Ortiz, but Rogan intervened. Instead, Coleman grabbed the microphone and said “F*ck you, Tito, you’re a douchebag”. The crowd at the Mandalay Bay Events Center started the “F*ck you Tito” chant as the show went off the air.
Ortiz was originally slated to fight Coleman in his return to the UFC. After an injury forced Coleman to withdraw, Ortiz called him a ‘sissy’ and a Twitter slapfight ensued. The best crackback came from Coleman’s business partner Michael DiSabato:
"The only thing Coleman is afraid of when it comes to Tito is contracting swine flu from that dirty ass d-bag. We all know where he lays his head down at night. Tito wants to get personal with a legend? OK, let's get personal - we can all go to our porn collections and watch what Tito sleeps with night after night."Other fighters were quick to denounce Tito, including his coaching adversary on the next season of ‘The Ultimate Fighter’ Chuck Liddell and Josh Koscheck. No one wants to see another ‘old timers’ matchup between Liddell and Ortiz, and Tito wants no part of a fighter at the top of his game like Koscheck. Tito would be better off jumping in front of a semi truck on I-15. And no one wants a Tito/Coleman fight either, including Dana White who indicated at the UFC 109 post event press conference that Coleman was likely retired.
There’s always a possibility that this was an ‘angle’ intended to increase the ‘heat’ between Liddell and Ortiz to benefit ‘TUF’ ratings. If this is the case, the UFC is stupid for using such a tired promotional tactic. They’ve already got a couple of coaches that no one is particularly interested in any more, and trying to fuel a ‘feud’ that is less relevant today than Hulk Hogan v. Ric Flair is just a mind bogglingly dumb promotional strategy.
If Tito’s antics at UFC 109 weren’t part of an ‘angle’, you’d think that Dana White would be interested in doing something about it. You can debate whether or not the UFC ‘needs’ mainstream acceptance, but at the very least it benefits them not to be a joke to the mainstream media. The Coleman/Couture main event got its share of guffaws from the mainstream media, and the Ortiz outburst after the fight got even more such as this blurb on the very influential sports site
Deadspin:
I Went To A UFC Match And a Fight Broke Out
As Mark Coleman transitioned into forced retirement, Tito Ortiz cursed him out from cageside, while girlfriend Jenna Jameson gave the finger. That's probably not a first for Jenna, if "Where The Boys Aren't 17" is any indication. Dana White has ‘swung like a hammer’ in the past when fighters have done something to put the UFC or MMA in a bad light—eg: Kalib Starnes and Renato ‘Babalu’ Sobral. Ortiz’s behavior would have been unseemly on a TNA pro wrestling show, and has no place in MMA. This isn’t simply because it makes the sport look bad to the mainstream media, it makes the UFC look bad to its most loyal fans and that’s something they simply can’t afford.
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