10 big UFC fights that failed to deliver

#5: Tito Ortiz vs. Ken Shamrock, UFC 61

Tito Ortiz's first fight with Ken Shamrock was more entertaining than the anticlimactic rematch

Despite the first meeting between bad boy Tito Ortiz and respected veteran Ken Shamrock being a one-sided beating in favour of Ortiz, the UFC fans were still extremely excited for the rematch that was booked between the two for 2006’s UFC 61.

This was largely because the boom caused by The Ultimate Fighter had bought in a massively new fanbase who hadn’t seen the original fight, but it was also because Shamrock had supposedly torn his ACL leading into the original, and he promised things would be different in the rematch.

Ortiz and Shamrock coached a season of TUF to build the fight, and UFC 61 ended up breaking the promotion’s pay-per-view buyrate record, but the fight simply didn’t live up to the hype.

Shamrock came out aggressively, only for Ortiz to slam him to the ground, where he began to land a series of elbows while inside Shamrock’s guard. Referee Herb Dean decided Shamrock wasn’t defending intelligently and stopped the fight after just over a minute, only for ‘The World’s Most Dangerous Man’ to spring to his feet, protesting that he was fine.

The crowd felt cheated out of a proper conclusion and immediately booed the whole debacle out of the building. The UFC felt so bad about the disappointing fight that they booked another rematch – on free TV this time – and although Ortiz once again finished Shamrock quickly, this time there was no question around it and so the fans were finally satisfied.