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In a chat with TMZ Sports, Ortiz sounded more than up for the challenge of facing UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones.
For a 44 year old who has gone through countless neck and spine surgeries, Tito Ortiz has been looking surprisingly spry in the cage lately. He won his last two fights against fellow over-the-hillers Chael Sonnen and Chuck Liddell easily, but more importantly he showed he still had solid snap in his striking and takedowns. He’s set to fight Alberto Del Rio on December 7th in a battle the bookies expect to be a one sided beatdown in Tito’s favor. But how would he do against someone in their prime?
No wait. Let’s go even further and ask how he’d do against the greatest fighter in the world, who may currently be in his prime?
TMZ Sports asked just that to Ortiz in a recent chat, asking if he’d like a go at UFC light heavyweight champ and current consensus GOAT Jon Jones.
”I’d give a go at it,” Ortiz replied. “I mean, I wouldn’t say I’d win but I’d give it a go. Come on, why wouldn’t I?”
Of course soon after Ortiz did indeed say he’d win.
”I think I could beat Jon Jones,” he said. “I think I got a good chance. I really do think I got a good chance. And people say ‘Oh Tito, bullshit, you’re over the hill, whatever. Come to my camp. Come train with me. Come wrestle with me. Come do jiujitsu with me. Watch my weight training, watch my biking and my stairs that I do. I push myself harder than I’ve pushed myself my entire career. I’m doing amazing. My mind is just in the right place and my body is in the right place.”
Since coming out of retirement in 2017, Ortiz’s ganked over body has somehow held up surprisingly well.
”When you don’t have a L45S1 bulging, a ruptured disc, a ruptured disc in your neck or a torn ACL and all these little damages that you have and try to get through camp,” Ortiz said in his typically garbled Tito-speak. “You gotta understand, through 2006 to 2012 I went through camps of training for 3 days and then taking 4 days off. Only thing that made me survive those draws and split decisions I lost was being up at altitude. That was the only thing that kept me alive because I had cardio.”
“And I was in such bad damage, my body was in a bad place. Especially with my ex that I was with, she was telling me what a horrible person I was and a horrible father. And that just eats you alive in general. But now I’m just on a different level, completely.”
As for what the gameplan would be against Jones?
”Presure,” Ortiz declared. “Pressure pressure pressure pressure.”