Fan Fight

Well after the tremendous night of fights at UFC 132, we are left with more than a few questions. Will there be a rubber match between Cruz and Faber? Will Wanderlei retire? Is George Sotiropoulos's career in the UFC over? Will Siver ever break into the top ten? And why does referee Mario Yamasaki always make that heart shape at the camera?

"Can't we all just love each other and get along?"

But the biggest question of all is the one that no one is talking about. Go ahead, I dare you to go look for it in Bleacher Reports. Is Tito Ortiz going to make a comeback after submitting top contender Ryan Bader, his first victory since 2006?

Tito Ortiz, the Huntington Beach Bad Boy, and former Light Heavyweight champion, has been on 5 year losing streak. His back was up against the wall, he had to beg Dana White (with whom he has often butted heads) for this one last fight. This one last chance at renewing the fading torch that is his fighting career. No one thought he could do it. You essentially had to be the biggest Tito Ortiz fan in the universe to predict this one, because when Ortiz submitted Bader you can bet they had to edit out the sound of Dana White's jaw hitting the floor before it got streamed out to all the pay-per-view watchers.

It was seriously that loud. Rumor has it that the entire front row of the audience were permanently deafened by the sound of White's jaw thundering down through the stadium floor and into basement.

The UFC main office building after Dana realized he'd have to give Tito yet another fight.

The legendary rivalry between Ortiz and UFC President Dana White aside we are forced to look at what lies in the future for the former dominant Light Heavyweight champ. Can he pull out another win after this? Or was this the grand last stand for the man who was once one of the most dominant fighters in the world? Was it a fluke? Is Ortiz back for good?

Well if you ask most mma analysts they will tell you that no, Ortiz is not back. They will say that at best he will string together a few more wins, maybe get back into the top ten of light heavyweights but that he will never again be champion. Or at the worse he loses fights for another five years and eventually (hopefully) retires.

Here's why.

Age: Tito is not the young buck he once was. In fact he is in his early 40's. Even the perennial annual contender Randy Couture who competed much longer than most fighters had an expiration date, and so does Tito Ortiz. And let us be completely honest, the fighters who can compete at a later age like Couture did are one in a thousand. I seriously doubt that Ortiz has that many years left him in, and unless a rash of injuries occur amongst the top contenders leaving the way to the championship wide open I don't see him having enough time to string together enough victories to make a run at the championship. And that is IF he strings together more victories. And that is a very big if.


Mindset: Ortiz is not known as being cautious, or keeping his eye on the goal. No, Ortiz is the kind of fighter that thinks he is the best even when he loses, always has an excuse for why he lost, and is always looking past his next fight to bigger and better things.

"All his life has he looked away... to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was. Hmm? What he was doing. Hmph. Adventure. Heh. Excitement. Heh. A Jedi craves not these things. You are reckless. "

It essentially took Ortiz to lose or draw five straight fights over five years, to have to beg on his hands and knees for another chance, to have his family life falling apart around him, and to lose most of his backing from trainers for him to focus on the task at hand and get his mind in the game. After he won the Bader fight, you could see on his face that he had already reverted back to his old overly-confident ways.

I may be wrong, maybe Ortiz has a new outlook at life and will train and fight from that new outlook. Maybe he will keep his head in the game and start focusing on his opponents without making excuses for his own occasional poor performance. But then again, I could also be right and Ortiz's transcendence above his own ego was only temporary. And if I am right, his mental game may revert back to what it once was and he will start losing fights again.


Skills: Tito is known for his wrestling and decent ground'n'pound technique. Occasionally delving into a fair amount of lay'n'pray as well. This style served him well in the earlier years of the UFC but now it may not be enough to compete with the more well-rounded fighters that are in the UFC.

If Ortiz couldn't out wrestle Matt Hamill for a solid win, then it is unlikely it can last long against bigger contenders. He either needs to update his game plan, or increase his wrestling prowess by leaps and bounds if he wants to tangle with the big guys.


Fluke: It may have a been a fluke win. There I said it, and before all you Tito fans get your panties in a twist let me clarify that. It MAY have been a fluke, there is no way to tell yet until Ortiz fights again. Lets be honest, not much happened in the Ortiz vs. Bader fight until Ortiz won. They were both just trying to find their range and Ortiz managed to find it first with a lucky uppercut that gave him a good opportunity to finish Bader.

It may have been skill, it may also have been luck. There is no way to tell, and that one win does not necessarily mean that Ortiz is back. It may be sign that he is. But it could also just be that he got a lucky strike in, and was experienced enough to jump all over it.


Politics: Ortiz is not coming off of a huge winning streak over some big names like he did back in 2006. His rivalry with Dana White is well known, and he had to beg for this last fight. Ortiz will probably get offered a small contract by the UFC. But don't expect much from them. Ortiz will be fighting uphill through six feet of snow in his quest for another fight. Will he get one? Yeah, probably. Will it be as big as it used to be? No. Why? Because it's a poor investment. It would just be bad business. Even if you weren't Dana White and didn't have a personal grudge against Ortiz you wouldn't want to risk too much on a man who many believe to be washed up. IF they give him another contract it will be for two or three fights. If not, then he will be a free agent once again.

And by "free agent" we mean dirt poor.

The conclusion to all of this?

The odds of making a successful comeback after a bad streak are always against the fighter. The odds of Tito Ortiz making a successful comeback after his bad streak are higher than most. While I think it would be really interesting to see what would happen if he pulled it off, I don't think he will. I think Ortiz has only a few fights left in his career and that we are seeing one last moment of glory on his part with Ryan Bader. In fact, if this were a Hollywood film, the credits would've started running right after Ortiz walked out of that cage. The rest of his career summed up in three lines of white text on black background before we began reading the long list of gaffers and electricians.

Good luck to you Tito, you were a hell of a fighter. But you are going to have to do a lot more than this to prove that you are back.

And your 'tude ain't helping me to get convinced bro.