By Hakon on February 16, 2009

If you happened to catch a UFC event in the late 90’s or early 2000’s, there’s a good chance that you saw Tito Ortiz either fighting or being heavily promoted by the organization.  In fact, during the “lean years” that the UFC experienced between the early “human cockfighting” days and the Spike TV explosion, Tito Ortiz was one of the only marketable stars that the UFC had to build their promotion around. 

However, in recent years, things have changed dramatically. 

Ortiz became steadily more aggravated with the fact that he had been ignored in favor of the UFC’s newly built stars, such as Georges St. Pierre, Randy Couture, Chuck Liddell, and Forrest Griffin.  Before Ortiz coached season 3 of “The Ultimate Fighter”, he was probably even less known than relative newcomers like Griffin and Diego Sanchez, and that did not sit well with him. 

Meanwhile, during a contract impasse that happened around the tumultous time that Ortiz lost his light heavyweight title, the UFC responded to Ortiz’s absence by making him even more absent: they erased any record of him on their website, and avoided showing him at their events, even when he wanted to corner his fighters. 

After that, it is hard to say whether the relationship between Ortiz and Zuffa, or particularly between Ortiz and UFC president Dana White, ever truly healed.  White, being a personality unto himself that seems to enjoy having public spats with fighters and rival promoters, even agreed to a boxing exhibition match between himself and the long-time former light heavyweight champion.  However, when everything got blown out of proportion, and the sparring match, which was intended to be beyond closed doors, began being discussed as a pay-per-view special, Ortiz backed out, citing that he was not going to be paid for the “event”. 

Ortiz has not enjoyed the best times of his career lately inside the octagon, either.  Although he easily bested rival Ken Shamrock two times in a row, both in quick fashion, he has struggled to win meaningful fights against top opponents.  He lost to Chuck Liddell both times he faced him, Randy Couture the only time he faced him, and only managed a draw against the undefeated Rashad Evans.  Tito did win a fairly close decision against Forrest Griffin, but many people felt that the future light heavyweight champion won the fight.  Ortiz, for his part, claimed in the post-fight interview that a knee injury hampered his performance, which did not endear him to the crowd that night. 

It appears that Ortiz has had his last fight in the octagon, which was a decision loss to the elusive (and undefeated) Lyoto Machida.  Now, Ortiz seems to be done with the UFC, as he and White have publicly continued to fuel the flames of their fued, with Ortiz saying he would “slap” White at a UFC event, and White flat out calling Ortiz “stupid”. 

Rumors persist that Ortiz will face former UFC light heavyweight title contender Renato “Babalu” Sobral at an upcoming Affliction show, and if so, it will be a huge test for Ortiz, as Babalu is no pushover.  What will happen for the rest of his career is anybody’s guess, but it does not appear that Ortiz will retire with the company that he fought his whole career to date with.

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