Tito Ortiz Calls For 1 Last Fight in UFC Against Fellow MMA Legend

Tito Ortiz

Getty Tito Ortiz

Former UFC light heavyweight king Tito Ortiz wants to return to the Octagon one last time and battle fellow ex-champion Shogun Rua.

Ortiz (21-12-1) plans to fight before the year is over, and he recently told Helen Yee that a battle with the former 205-pound champion would be “an amazing last fight for myself and for Shogun Rua.”

Earlier this month, Rua (27-13-1) told reporters ahead of his UFC 274 bout with Ovince Saint Preux that he would retire after two more Octagon appearances. He lost the bout via split decision.

“It’s never over and I think I made that mistake with the UFC when I said I’ll never fight for the UFC ever again. And now I think about it, that’ll be an amazing last fight for myself and for Shogun Rua,” Ortiz said via Bloody Elbow.

“Shogun has his last fight with the UFC, we’re in kind of the same era, so it would be nice to see a Tito Ortiz vs. Shogun. I would like that.

“I have a lot of respect for Shogun, I think he’s an amazing former champion, an amazing fighter. I watched his last fight. I thought he won the fight, but they ended up giving it to OSP. Let’s see what happens in the future.”

Ortiz hasn’t fought in a mixed martial arts bout since his rear-naked choke victory over Alberto Rodriguez in December 2019. He’s 3-0 in his last three fights and 5-1 in his last six. Most recently, Ortiz boxed former UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva during a Triller event in September. “The Huntington Beach Bad Boy” was knocked out by Silva.

Ortiz’s relationship with the UFC and the promotion’s president, Dana White, has been up and down for years. And most recently, Ortiz accused the UFC of trying to “erase” him from the history books.

Shogun is 0-2 in his last two fights. He won the UFC light heavyweight title in May 2010 by dethroning Lyoto Machida, but he dropped it in his first defense to Jon Jones. Shogun is also the 2005 Pride Middleweight Grand Prix Champion.


Ortiz Just Started Training Again, Needs Around 4 Months to Prepare

Ortiz recently spoke with “The Schmo” as well, and The Huntington Beach Bad Boy revealed that he’s back in the gym.

“I’m 47 right now,” Ortiz said. “I won’t be 48 until next year. I feel good, I feel strong. I just started training this week. I’ll fight one more time this year, before the year’s over. I want not to go out the way I did with Anderson.

“It’ll be an MMA fight. But like I said, just started preparing this week. I’ll be getting ready here for the next four months and we’ll see, maybe September, October, another Tito Ortiz in the cage.”


Ortiz Had a Difficult Time Making Weight for His Boxing Fight With Silva

The Huntington Beach Bad Boy and “The Spider” were scheduled to box at 195 pounds, but Ortiz hit the scale at 200 pounds, five pounds over the limit. According to Ortiz, he hasn’t weighed 195 pounds since he was in college, and he spent most of his preparation cutting weight.

“His boxing career has been amazing,” Ortiz said. “When I took the fight against Anderson, I had a month before the fight to prepare for it. And the whole month was literally to cut weight and Anderson was a smart guy, tried to get me down to 195.

“I’ve never been down to 195 since I think my freshman year in college. But, making that weight to 200, it was really, really hard.”

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