Pioneers of MMA: Tito Ortiz

The later years

2007 and 2008 were less pivotal years for Ortiz.

2007 saw him take a draw against up-and-comer Rashad Evans, a decent performance that saw him dominate the smaller Rashad early on before slowing down a lot in the later rounds. A fence grab actually cost Ortiz the match as he’d taken the first two rounds on the scorecards, but it wasn’t a vintage Tito performance.

2008 saw a fight with Lyoto Machida in the last one on Tito’s contract, and again – due to the bad blood with Dana, as well as Ortiz wanting more money – he was planning to head into free agency afterwards. Apparently, Dana even paid Lyoto extra money to beat Ortiz, which he was able to do despite a late scare with a triangle choke attempt from the former Champion.

Tito was once again outside the UFC, but this time he wasn’t quite as relevant, as his myriad of injuries, out-of-date fighting style, and the fact that the UFC now had bigger stars like Georges St-Pierre and Brock Lesnar, meant that he wasn’t the pivotal figure he once was.

By 2009 though, after the UFC failed to acquire Fedor Emelianenko when they announced a press conference to detail the takeover of the Affliction promotion, who was the big fighter they announced that they’d signed?

Tito Ortiz of course.

This time he’d apparently buried the hatchet with Dana White and somehow became a consummate company man. In terms of his fighting, it was realistically the beginning of the end of his career – one upset win over Ryan Bader was wedged in between a series of losses – five in total – and in 2012, three years after re-signing at the press conference, Ortiz announced his retirement.

He was immediately inducted into the UFC’s Hall of Fame on the same weekend.

The fact that even after all the feuding, Ortiz was able to bury the hatchet with Dana and be embraced back into the Zuffa fold is telling of both his acumen as a businessman and also of the fact that despite it all, he’s quite a likeable guy.

After all, the hatchet has never been buried between Zuffa and Tito’s old foe Frank Shamrock, and even when Randy Couture returned to the fold after all of the lawsuit issues in 2008, things were never the same and by 2012 he was back on the outs.

Even a largely pointless return to action under the Bellator banner in 2013 didn’t really sour Zuffa on Ortiz all that much. Sure, there were the odd barbs but for the most part, he was no longer persona non grata.

After four fights in Bellator – three wins and a loss to prospect Liam McGeary – Ortiz retired again, this time apparently for good.