Pioneers of MMA: Tito Ortiz

Breaking records

After teasing a move to the burgeoning – and eventually unsuccessful – WFA promotion, as well as considering starting his own promotion with casino moguls the Maloof brothers, Ortiz was brought back into the fold in late 2005 after almost a year in the wilderness.

Although he didn’t actually do anything, this period was important for Ortiz because by constantly talking about signing elsewhere or starting his own promotion, Tito made sure that his name was always in the headlines as the TUF boom grew.

It’s the sort of move that Conor McGregor makes today in order to stay relevant when he’s not fighting.

Upon his return, Ortiz was able to squeak out a split decision over TUF Champion Forrest Griffin, in a fight that I scored for Tito but many fans didn’t. It was probably the last time we saw Tito Ortiz at his peak, as he followed it with two largely pointless wins over a totally shot Ken Shamrock, the second of which set a TV rating’s record for the UFC on Spike at the time.

Next up the UFC booked a rematch between Tito and Chuck, this time for Liddell’s Light-Heavyweight title. Tito promised that this time there was no lingering friendship and so things would be different.

The show – UFC 66 – drew over a million buys, a UFC record, and proved that Ortiz was still one of the UFC’s top stars. He’d already broken the buyrate record once in 2006 with UFC 61’s rematch with Ken Shamrock, built by a season of TUF with the two as coaches.

UFC 66’s record wouldn’t be broken for another three years until 2009’s Lesnar-driven UFC 100. Ortiz – and Liddell – managed to draw more than all of the UFC’s other big stars, despite the sport growing immeasurably in the years that followed.

It tells you a lot about the star power of Tito and was – along with the Shamrock series – the biggest example to younger fighters that the way to draw money was to create pro-wrestling-esque feuds, something that resonates hugely today.

Tito didn’t win the fight, though – the story remained the same with Liddell stopping the takedowns and eventually knocking him out.