Bellator is looking to tempt fate once more, with its president saying that the injury prone Tito Ortiz will, eventually, make his debut for the promotion.
The former UFC star was due to headline Bellator’s first ever pay-per-view event this Saturday, however, a neck injury, which has dogged the fighter for years, forced him out.
“He’ll be back,” said Bellator president Bjorn Rebney (H/T MMA Junkie). “Right now, we just have to worry about the fracture in his neck healed 120 percent. Once it’s healed, he’ll be back… He wants to fight again, and his neck specialist told me that it’s not the kind of injury you can’t come back from.”
Ortiz, 38, had officially retired from fighting after losing three in a row in 2012. His last fight, a decision loss to Forrest Griffin, was also his sixth loss in seven fights, and much of the latter part of his career has been spent recovering from the same neck injury that forced him off the card on Saturday.
Since retirement, the UFC Hall of Famer has flirted with management, in particular taking charge of the career of female fighter Cristiane Justino. However, he’s been unable to conceal his desire to step back in the cage, particularly fighting for a rival promotion to the UFC.
In fact, fighting for Bellator would have been the perfect opportunity for the media-hungry Ortiz to demonstrate his contempt for his former UFC employers, for whom he has few kind words to say, as well as recapture his former glory.
He was scheduled to fight at Bellator 106 against another disgruntled ex-UFC fighter, Quinton Jackson, until Ortiz’s injury forced the promotion to postpone its PPV dreams.
Since then, Jackson has been signed on to face Joey Beltran at Bellator 108, while Ortiz looks to recover and take another shot at his Bellator debut.
Rebney, meanwhile, says he’s standing by his unreliable fighter no matter what.
“I’ve made a commitment to him that we’d try to make another run,” said Rebney. “And while this went to sh*t, the assumption is he’ll heal and we’ll give it a run. He’s had injuries, but he hasn’t made a career out of pulling out of fights.”
Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com