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So how come Jenna Jameson is giving the impression that she’s single? www.adultfyi.com/read.php?ID=53656
from www.joe.ie- Tito Ortiz is in Sweden ahead of a UFC event that was the fastest selling yet on European soil, although selling tickets for a UFC card to a country whose ancestors were the pillaging, violent Vikings is probably like shooting fish-in-a-barrel.
Still, it speaks to the international growth of the UFC over the past decade.
Tito was a large part of that.
When the UFC was in troubled times, registering only 50,000 pay-per-view buys per event, his box-office power propelled that figure into the millions by the end of the decade.
He rose to prominence again last year, coming back from neck surgery to score a win over Ryan Bader and earn ‘Fight of the Night’ honours against Rashad Evans in a fight for the right to face champion Jon ‘Bones’ Jones.
Now after 15 years, he has confirmed to JOE that he has no plans to back out of his planned retirement following a third and final fight against Forrest Griffin at UFC 148 on 7 July.
“I’ve been fighting for 15 years, but there is a time to say ‘when’ and ‘when’ is now,” he tells us.
“I want to leave on my own terms; I am the longest competing fighter in the Octagon and have the most consecutive title defences, but I don’t want to overstay my welcome.”
“I have had a few major surgeries and looking at some of the younger kids coming up, I just don’t have the same focus anymore. My health is number one – I have had neck surgery, knee surgery and back surgery. I made my name at the UFC and I want to go out while that name is still a name to be reckoned with.”
Ortiz has had many great rivalries over the years, such as three hate-fuelled fights against Ken Shamrock, two against Evans and two against former friend Chuck Liddell, but it is perhaps apt that he finishes with a rubber fight against the much-loved Forrest Griffin.
JOE put it to Tito that not only would this would be the deciding fight between the pair – both fighters notched up victories against each other in the past – but that they were also the two fighters that saved an ailing UFC in the middle part of the last decade: Forrest as the star contestant of the first series of the mainstream reality TV hit The Ulimate Fighter and Tito as the cocky and abrasive champion who was the poster child of the UFC at the time.
“Forrest is a great fighter and a great competitor,” Tito says.
“You know Forrest made a huge name for himself with the Ultimate fighter and had that amazing fight on it with Stephan Bonnar, but I was the flag-bearer that kept the company afloat when it was in the dark ages.
“I won my first title at the age of 23 and defended it five consecutive times, the longest consecutive amount of defences to date. Jon “Bones” Jones is creeping up on that stat, but let’s see if he can do it.”
“My other fights were great rivalries, but I think this is an Ali-Frazier. I won the first fight, he won the second controversially and both of them could have gone either way, so let’s do a trilogy and see who is the best man standing … he deserves to be my last fight.”
Despite needing to have two vertebrae fused together during surgery over a year ago, Ortiz’s comeback was nothing short of remarkable.
He puts it down to a new found positivity.
Gone is the Californian’s old nickname “The Huntington Beach Bad Boy.’ He’s now insistent on being called ‘The People’s Champion.’
The days of wearing t-shirts sponsored by porno companies that taunted opponents with monikers like ‘I just F**ked your A**’ directed at Jerry Bohlander and “Gay Mezger is my B**ch” at Guy Mezger are over, he says.
I am an icon and legend of the sport and I have to live up to that.
“It’s amazing I came back.
“I just wanted to prove my fans right, that I could come back. I am very thankful for that and I think either angels are looking over me, or good things happen to good people.
“Positivity is the keyword, being the negative bad-boy was with me my whole career. I was trying to sell the sport to the average fan. They wanted someone they could love to hate and I was that guy. Now I’ve changed it to a different limelight of being positive and showing that hard work and dedication works.
“It was all for the fans. They were the ones that built me and made me and I want to be there for them. I am an icon and legend of the sport and I have to live up to that.”
Does he regret any of his more obnoxious antics before reaching this more sanguine, reflective stage of his life?
“No, not really, it’s all a learning process. You learn from it and it made me the man I am today. Some of the stuff I did to Dana White (The UFC president) I might take back a little, but I was standing up for money for fighters and I am an inspiration to a lot of fighters for doing that and being a legend of the Octagon.”
The new found positivity is obviously still married to his old cocky boastfulness, but that becomes a little easier to understand when you realise who he is married to.
Last week, the paparazzi were out in force in Las Vegas as they snapped the UFC star at the birthday of his wife, Jenna Jameson, the doyenne of the adult-film world. How much of his current state of content can be attributed to her?
“Jenna’s my best friend, the woman of my children,” Tito says.
“You can’t live without a best friend and that’s her. We both aspire to be great people and I’m inspired through her and what she’s done and I think it’s vice-versa for her. I have my three boys and Jenna – that’s my family. We are five-in-a-pod!”
The relationship with Jenna is another side of Tito that people are surprised at, to see him as a family man.
A lot of these fighters only care about fighting and that’s it. What are they going to do when their career is done?
People were equally surprised when he came across as a more nurturing coach than Ken Shamrock in season three of The Ultimate Fighter. Shamrock was cold towards his students, despite having a great reputation for coaching at his Lion’s Den camp, while Tito, in contrast, helped nudge along the career of a young Michael Bisping in a positive, reinforcing manner.
Despite this, he doesn’t see his future in coaching, but in management.
“I would love to show these young fighters how to make their name a brand. A lot of these fighters only care about fighting and that’s it. What are they going to do when their career is done?”
“That’s what I focused on during my career, what I am going to do after it. I started my own clothing line, supplement line and my own gym. It has always been business, strictly business.
“I mean the fight game and getting in the Octagon is fun, getting to see who the better athlete is, but you have to treat it as a business and a lot of young fighters have to realise that.”
I’ve always been a big fan of the WWE, I mean that’s who I modelled my career on – a mixture of Hulk Hogan and Muhammad Ali and I think I was that guy for the UFC.
“You need to have entertainment and fighting together and approach it as a business.”
In that case, would he follow former UFC champion Brock Lesnar into the world of sports entertainment, professional wrestling and the WWE?
Tito laughs. “Well when I was a UFC champion I did talk to Vince McMahon (the WWE owner) about doing it, but I love the fight game, the real fight game … there’s no scripts!” he says.
“But you never know, I can’t say yes or no, my whole future is in question.
“Do I come back and work for the UFC, do I become a manager or coach and create the new Chuck Liddells or Randy Coutures or do I do the WWE thing?
“I’ve always been a big fan of the WWE, I mean that’s who I modelled my career on – a mixture of Hulk Hogan and Muhammad Ali – and I think I was that guy for the UFC. I brought them into the mainstream.
“The question still stands though, what do I do next?”
Tito is happy that his time is over and thinks Jonny ‘Bones’ Jones will take up his mantle as the most exciting fighter in the UFC, saying: “He is the future and I think he will walk through Rashad in the next fight.”
In the meantime he is now taking the liberty of looking back at a 15-year career at the top.
“It’s the end of era. I am an inspiration to a lot of fighters and fans.
“I came from a bad background; both my parents were drug addicts. I wasn’t meant to be able to make it, but I did it through hard work and dedication. That’s me, the American Dream, you can achieve anything in a lifetime. I’m a proven fact of that.”
Brash, cocky, positive, arrogant, talented, but always interesting.
Tito Ortiz is a lot of things to a lot of people.
The UFC will miss him after 7 July.