If his 12-year tenure in the UFC's light heavyweight division proved anything, it's that Tito Ortiz is not a timid man. Ortiz, a former champion and current UFC Hall of Famer, was never one to shy away from a hot microphone, regardless of the consequences.
That penchant for honestly landed Ortiz in hot water on more than one occasion, especially with the higher-ups at Zuffa. Although retirement may have mellowed the former "Huntington Beach Bad Boy," Ortiz's ability to say exactly what is on his mind often made him a fan favorite, and it is still present.
Appearing on Monday episode of The MMA Hour, Ortiz riffed on a number of wide-ranging topics, from his efforts to secure a Cris Cyborg vs. Ronda Rousey superfight and thoughts on retirement, to the prevalence of PEDs in MMA and his current relationship with Dana White. The following are excerpts from that conversation:
On a potential Ronda Rousey vs. Cyborg Santos superfight:
"Working with Cyborg is challenging. The girl wants to fight, of course, but it's just a question with her getting down to 145 [pounds]. She really feels it's impossible. She walks around 160, 165, and to make 145 for all the years she's done it, she's like, Tito, it really takes the last energy just for me to make 145. Now they want me to cut down to 135? It's going to be really, really, almost impossible.' I battle back and forth with her, telling her how the UFC is going to take care of her, this and that. We're still just ... we're at the end of the rope, I think. I'm not sure if she wants to do it. Me and my partner, George Prajin, we just sit there and we just try to talk to her over and over again.
"Will she make 135? As a person who has cut weight for 22 years: no, I don't think it's going to happen. It's hard for women to cut that much weight. For a woman to be three-percent body fat, it's not healthy. She talks about that she wants to have kids some day. Things like that can damage her [in that regard], and a lot of people don't understand that. This is not a man we're talking about. This is a woman we're talking about. For Ronda to cut down the weight, yeah, she had a lot of extra weight on her.
"[Cyborg] doesn't have much on her. She used to walk around at 170 and she lost some muscle mass just to try to see if she can get lower in this weight to do it. So far, so good. Like I said, she's 160, 165. She bounces back around there. She says she stopped lifting weights the way she does and really just [been] focusing on her jiu-jitsu. She's been training, putting in the time.
"I hope I can put this fight together, man. I'm trying my hardest. I hope Dana [White] understands. I hope Dana is listening to this and understands. I'm trying to get this thing together."
On Ronda Rousey and the UFC women's division:
"I think it should be more about the women's division in general, than about one person. Ronda's fought maybe, what, five times now? Or only five times now? To do that to somebody, it just shows disrespect towards all the other women fighters that are in that weight class.
More here:
Tito Ortiz on Cyborg-Rousey superfight, PEDs, relationship with Dana White, coming out of retirement and more
